CHAPTER I.

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THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER

THE FULL SERIES OF

The Mysteries of the People

:: OR ::

History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages

By EUGENE SUE

_Consisting of the Following Works:_

THE GOLD SICKLE; or, _Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen_.

THE BRASS BELL; or, _The Chariot of Death_.

THE IRON COLLAR; or, _Faustina and Syomara_.

THE SILVER CROSS; or, _The Carpenter of Nazareth_.

THE CASQUE'S LARK; or, _Victoria, the Mother of the Camps_.

THE PONIARD'S HILT; or, _Karadeucq and Ronan_.

THE BRANDING NEEDLE; or, _The Monastery of Charolles_.

THE ABBATIAL CROSIER; or, _Bonaik and Septimine_.

THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS; or, _The Daughters of Charlemagne._

THE IRON ARROW-HEAD; or, _The Buckler Maiden_.

THE INFANT'S SKULL; or, _The End of the World_.

THE PILGRIM'S SHELL; or, _Fergan the Quarryman_.

THE IRON PINCERS; or, _Mylio and Karvel_.

THE IRON TREVET; or, _Jocelyn the Champion_.

THE EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE; or, _Joan of Arc_.

THE POCKET BIBLE; or, _Christian the Printer_.

THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER; or, _The Peasant Code_.

THE SWORD OF HONOR; or, _The Foundation of the French Republic_.

THE GALLEY SLAVE'S RING; or, _The Family Lebrenn_.

Published Uniform With This Volume By

THE NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.

28 CITY HALL PLACE

NEW YORK CITY

THE BLACKSMITH'S

HAMMER

: : OR : :

THE PEASANT CODE

A Tale of the Grand Monarch

By EUGENE SUE

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH

By DANIEL DE LEON

NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY. 1910

INDEX

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE v

INTRODUCTION 1

PART I. HOLLAND.

CHAPTER

I. THE ST. ELOI 5

II. BERTHA OF PLOUERNEL 11

III. THE HUGUENOT COLONEL 25

IV. THE LOST LETTER 33

V. JOHN DE WITT 54

VI. CORNELIUS DE WITT 79

VII. MOB-VERDICT 91

VIII. THE FLIGHT 103

PART II. BRITTANY.

I. NOMINOE 113

II. A BRETON WEDDING 122

III. THE RED-COATS 140

IV. DESERTED! 155

V. THE MYSTERY AT PLOUERNEL 164

VI. BERTHA AND NOMINOE 190

VII. EZ-LIBR 229

VIII. THE MANOR OF PLOUERNEL 251

IX. THE PEASANTS' DEFEAT 258

X. UNITED 265

EPILOGUE 282

FOOTNOTES

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

Bulwer Lytton observes of fiction that, when aspiring at something

higher than mere romance, it does not pervert, but elucidates the facts

of the times in which the scene is placed; hence, that fiction serves to

illustrate those truths which history is too often compelled to leave to

the tale-teller, the dramatist and the poet. In this story, _The

Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code_--the seventeenth of the

charming series of Eugene Sue's historic novels, _The Mysteries of the

People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages_--the author

reaches a height in which are combined all the elements that Bulwer

Lytton distributes among history, tale, drama and poetry.

The history is clean cut; the tale fascinates; its dramatic presentation

is matchless; last, not least, the poetic note is lyric. As historian,

as tale-teller, as dramatist and as a poet the author excels himself in

this narrative, that serves at once as a sequel of the age described in

the previous story, _The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer_, and

as prelude to the great epopee of the next story that deals with the

French Revolution.

DANIEL DE LEON.

New York, March, 1910.

INTRODUCTION.

I, Salaun Lebrenn, the son of Stephan, who was the son of Antonicq, who

finished the legend of The Pocket Bible, begun by his grandfather

Christian the printer--I, Salaun Lebrenn, am the writer of the following

narrative.

To you, my last-born, Alain Lebrenn, the child of my old age, I bequeath

this legend, a continuation of our plebeian annals. I shall join to

these pages the head of a blacksmith's hammer. It will increase the

number of our family relics. You are to transmit it, jointly with our

annals, to your own descendants.

My grandfather Antonicq Lebrenn died in his sixty-eighth year, on

November 11, 1616. Stephan, Antonicq's son, was twenty-three years of

age at the time of his father's decease. He continued to be a farmer on

the Karnak farm, a dependency of the fief of Mezlean, held under the

suzerainty of the seigniory of Plouernel. Obedient to the _law of

usage_, after a certain number of years Stephan became a vassal of the

seigniory. At the age of twenty-six, in 1619, he married, and had two

sons--myself, Salaun, born in 1625, and my brother Gildas, born in 1628.

Our father Stephan, a good man, but timid and resigned, submitted

without a murmur to all the impositions, all the affronts, and all the

sufferings of vassalage. He died in his fifty-ninth year on February

13, 1651. My brother Gildas, a man of as good, patient and submissive a

disposition as my father, succeeded him in the holding of the Karnak

farm, located on the coast of Armorican Brittany. Myself, being of a

less submissive disposition than Gildas, and having chosen a sailor's

life for my vocation, engaged as ship's boy on board one of the vessels

in the port of Vannes. I was then fifteen years old. I made many

voyages, and attained the office of supercargo, and later of captain of

a merchant vessel. Thanks to my earnings, I was later enabled to

purchase a ship, and sail it on my own account. In 1646--during the

reign of Louis XIV who succeeded his father Louis XIII--I married for

the first time. My first wife was Janik Tankeru, the sister of a

blacksmith of Vannes. My dear and lamented wife made my life as happy as

circumstances allowed, and I returned to her the happiness I owed her.

In 1651 she bore me a son whom I named Nominoe. Alas! I was to survive

him. You will now read his history in this narrative that I leave to

you, son of Joel--a lamentable narrative which I have written, often

moistening it with my tears.

PART I.

HOLLAND.

CHAPTER I.

THE ST. ELOI.

Early in the month of August of the year 1672, a violent tempest raged

on the coast of Holland. Driven by the storm, and already deprived of

one of its masts, the French brigantine St. Eloi "fled before the gale,"

as mariners put it. With only a little triangular bit of sail spread

forward, she strove to run into the port of Delft, which lies not far

from The Hague. The enormous waves, furiously dashing against the jetty

of the port, completely hid it behind a mist of foam. Aware of his close

proximity to land, the captain gave at frequent intervals the signal of

distress with two pieces of artillery that were placed upon the

forecastle. He sought thereby to attract some daring pilot of the port

to take charge of the partly dismantled craft, the plight of which

became all the more distressful when a dash of the sea carried away a

portion of the rudder, and rendered control of the vessel almost

impossible. The St. Eloi had left Calais that morning for Dover; the

weather was beautiful, the wind favorable. In the middle of the Channel,

however, the wind shifted suddenly to west-northwest, and blew with such

fury that, compelled to flee before the tempest, and unable either to

keep its course for Dover or return to Calais, the brigantine sought to

reach a haven of refuge in one of the ports on the Dutch coast.

The distinguished passengers who chartered the St. Eloi for a passage

across the Channel to England were three in number: the Marchioness of

Tremblay; her niece, Mademoiselle Bertha of Plouernel; and Abbot

Boujaron. They were accompanied by a lackey and a maid. The Marchioness

of Tremblay was on the way to join in London her nephew, Bertha's

brother, Baron Raoul of Plouernel, who was charged by Louis XIV with a

special commission to Charles II, King of England. Although, since the

beginning of the year, both the latter power and France were at war with

the Dutch Republic, or rather the seven United Provinces, strangers

occasionally received "letters of safeguard" from the admiralty at

Amsterdam, thanks to which they could cross the Channel without fear of

the cruisers of Admiral Ruyter's squadron. Equipped with one of these

letters, the St. Eloi was under sail for Dover when the storm overtook

her. In order not to stand in the way of the pumps, that were kept busy

by as many of the men as the vessel's small crew could afford, bailing

the water from a leak in the hold, the passengers were soon obliged to

go upon the bridge. Their different attitudes at that critical moment

presented striking contrasts. The Marchioness of Tremblay, a woman of

ripe age, once reputed a belle but now of haughty demeanor, lay

shuddering with fear upon a mattress, stretched out on the vessel's

poop; she was supported by her maid, and, in order to prevent her being

tossed about by the heavy roll of the ship, she was steadied by a scarf

that passed under her arm and was fastened to the taffrail. Beside her,

and no less pale than herself, Abbot Boujaron, a man of fifty, short,

thick-set and puffy, held himself fast to a shroud with a convulsively

clenched hand, while with the other he clung to the arm of his lackey,

and emitted plaintive moans, interspersed with bits of expostulatory

prayers. Mademoiselle Bertha of Plouernel on the contrary, seemed to

take no thought of the danger of the hour, but gave herself over to the

imposing poetry of the storm, after having vainly endeavored to reassure

her aunt the Marchioness, and induce her to share the serenity that

never leaves brave spirits in the lurch. The young girl, barely twenty

years of age, was tall, supple, well rounded, with a brunette complexion

of radiant beauty. It was emotion and not fear that animated her

otherwise pale face, while the spark that shone in her large black eyes,

surmounted with well-marked eyebrows, sufficiently denoted the feverish

admiration that the sight of the elements in fury inspired her with.

With dilating nostrils, a heaving bosom, her forehead lashed by the gale

that raised and blew backward the floating ringlets of her hair, she

steadied herself with a firm hand against the rigging of the ship, and

yielded to the motion of the rolling and pitching craft with a

suppleness that unveiled the elegance of her waist while enabling her to

preserve her equilibrium. Mademoiselle Plouernel contemplated in wrapt

enthusiasm the spectacle presented to her eyes, all the more indifferent

to the danger that threatened her, seeing she did not believe in death.

Yes, son of Joel, in keeping with the ancient faith of the Gauls, our

fathers, the young girl was upheld by the conviction that, as a

consequence of the phenomenon called "death," the soul freed itself of

its material wrappage, the body, in order to assume a new form

appropriate to its entrance upon other spheres. She firmly believed

that, body and soul, spirit and matter, life was renewed, or rather

continued, in the starry worlds that spangle the firmament.

A second dash of the sea finished and carried off the brigantine's

rudder. The vessel's position became desperate. The captain fired a last

signal of distress, still hoping to be heard by the pilots of Delft and

to bring them to his aid. The signal was heard. A caravel, a sort of

solid yet light ship, that, thanks to its special build, is better able

than any other to beat its way against violent winds and over heavy

seas, was seen to emerge from the harbor. Tacking with as much skill as

daring, at times disappearing in the troughs of the towering waves that

seemed to swallow her up, the caravel would again reappear riding their

crests and almost lying upon her white sails that grazed the foam of the

billows as the wings of a sea bird graze the water. At the risk of

foundering, the caravel steadily approached the disabled brigantine.

"Ah," cried the captain of the St. Eloi, "to dare come out to our help

in such a storm, the commander of that caravel must be as generous a man

as skilful and intrepid a sailor!"

Struck by these words Mademoiselle Plouernel followed with increased

interest the manoeuvres of the caravel, that steadily tacked its way

towards the distressed brigantine. The sturdy craft went upon a new leg,

in order to pass within hailing distance of the brigantine, that now,

wholly dismantled and deprived of its rudder, had become the toy of wave

and wind, the combined violence of which was driving her towards the

shore, where she would inevitably have been dashed to pieces.

Suddenly--a common phenomenon near land--the storm was almost completely

hushed; the sea, however, would long continue heavy, and its action,

combined with that of the tide, carried the St. Eloi, which was unable

to steer herself into port, straight upon the rocks that littered the

shore. The caravel had made good use of the last gusts of wind and drawn

steadily nearer. She had only a few sailors on board. At the stern and,

despite his youth, managing the rudder with a vigorous and experienced

hand, stood a mariner of about twenty years. The youth presented a

virile and charming picture. His head and neck were bare, his hair and

forehead streamed with the spray of the dashing waves. He wore a jacket

of red wool and wide breeches of white cloth that were half hidden in

his large fisherman's boots. The resolute attitude of the young mariner,

who, at the risk of his own life, strove to save the lives of strangers

to him; his calm, intelligent and bold face--in short the youth's

attitude, appearance and conduct, imparted to the heroism of his action

a character of such grandeur and touching generosity that both the

courage and personality of the approaching savior of the brigantine

made a lively impression upon Mademoiselle Plouernel. As soon as he hove

within hailing distance, the young master of the caravel shouted in

French to the captain of the St. Eloi that, although the swell of the

sea still continued heavy and rendered approach dangerous, he would

manoeuvre in such manner as to tow the brigantine into port. Laborious,

delicate and difficult was the operation requisite to keep the disabled

ship from certain wreck by being cast upon the rocks by the rising tide.

The skilful manoeuvre was successfully executed by the master of the

caravel. His sailors threw a cable to the brigantine; out came their

long oars in order to supplement the dying wind; at the expiration of an

hour the St. Eloi, finally out of danger, cast anchor in the harbor of

Delft.

CHAPTER II.

BERTHA OF PLOUERNEL.

Once disembarked at the port of Delft, the Marchioness of Tremblay

regained her spirits, that the fright of the tempest had upset, and she

remembered often to have met in Paris a certain Monsieur Tilly at the

house of Monsieur Van Orbek, a rich Dutchman, who, emulating in

sumptuous display the famous contractor Samuel Bernard, gave the

handsomest feasts in the world, whither both court and town crowded. On

such occasions, Monsieur Tilly more than once gallantly offered the

Marchioness the hospitality of his house in The Hague, if she should

ever happen to visit that city; his residence, he said, was at her

disposal. The Marchioness now remembered the offer, and finding it

unpleasant to have to wait in a wretched hostlery of the seaport of

Delft for some neutral vessel bound to England--a rare occurrence since

the breaking out of the war--the lady despatched an express to Monsieur

Tilly, certain that he would deem himself highly honored at extending

hospitality to her. Indeed, Monsieur Tilly gallantly hastened in person

from The Hague to Delft, whence he himself took the Marchioness, her

niece and Abbot Boujaron to The Hague, being at the time all the better

able to tender his hospitality to the distinguished guests, seeing that,

as he explained, his wife was then at Amsterdam at the sick-bed of her

mother.

The Marchioness of Tremblay was speedily installed at The Hague in the

residence of Monsieur Tilly, where she occupied on the first floor a

vast apartment furnished with the luxury peculiar to those republican

navigators, who, trafficking with the whole world, gathered in their

homes most precious fabrics, porcelains and furnitures from China and

the East Indies, vases from Japan, lacquer cabinets and folding-screens

from Coromandel, carpets from Smyrna, glasswork from Venice. All these

rare curiosities were found in profusion at Monsieur Tilly's residence.

Still suffering from the fatigue of her rough passage, the Marchioness

was partly stretched upon a reclining chair, placed near a glass door

that opened upon a balcony, sheltered from the rays of the sun and the

public gaze by a sort of netting striped red and white. Mademoiselle

Plouernel sat not far from her aunt, who, continuing the conversation

that the two had been carrying on, proceeded to say:

"You will have to admit, my dear, that the lot of Mademoiselle

Kerouaille is worthy of envy. The King--"

But noticing that her niece was not listening, the Marchioness broke

off, remarking:

"Bertha, your absentmindedness is singular. What is it that you are

thinking about? Tell me!"

"I was thinking of my brother Raoul. I hope his illness will not grow

worse during the delay that our journey to London is unfortunately

undergoing," answered Mademoiselle Plouernel in accents of deep emotion.

And after a moment's silence she continued:

"But there is in all this something that seems unexplainable to me.

Monsieur Noirmont left London two or three days after the date of the

letter that informed you of my brother's illness, and still Monsieur

Noirmont stated to us only a short time ago, at Versailles, that at the

time of his departure from England he left Raoul in perfect health."

"Monsieur Noirmont must have wished to conceal the truth from us,"

replied the Marchioness, slightly embarrassed; "people always dislike to

be the bearers of bad news."

"And yet nothing seemed more sincere than the extreme astonishment with

which Monsieur Noirmont was struck when he learned from us of my

brother's illness, and--"

"Good God, my dear, I wish I had your facility for doubting facts," said

the Marchioness, impatiently interrupting her niece; "but I am not

allowed to entertain any such doubts. I only console myself in advance

with the thought of the excellent influence that will be exercised upon

Raoul's health by my presence, and yours especially--"

"Mine?" answered Bertha sadly; "I hope it will be so."

"That should be, to you, not a hope, but a certainty."

"My elder brother has until now shown so much coolness towards me--"

"My niece, such a reproach!"

"It is not a reproach--it is the expression of a sorrow. For the rest,

Raoul and I have spent our childhood and the first years of our youth

almost as strangers to each other. He lived near my father, I near my

mother. I can not be surprised at Raoul's indifference towards me."

"You greatly err, my dear, with regard to what you wrongly, very

wrongly, term his indifference. Do you forget that by virtue of his

right of primogeniture, with the death of my brother, he has become the

head of our family? The quality of head of our family confers upon Raoul

the full authority that your father and mother were vested with during

their lives over their children. As a matter of course, such authority

imposes upon Raoul, in his relations towards you and Guy, your second

brother, a certain degree of reserve, of gravity, I might say of

severity that must in no wise be confounded with indifference. He, on

the contrary, is exceptionally attached to you. But I must say--and I

beg you not to see in my words even the shadow of a reproach," the

Marchioness added, insinuatingly, "I must admit that a certain turn to

freedom in your disposition, a certain stubborn way of looking at some

things from a viewpoint that is wholly opposed to Raoul's, may have

occasionally, I shall not say made him take umbrage at you, but may have

given some uneasiness to the warm solicitude that he entertains for

you--seeing that it is his duty to fill towards you the strict functions

of a father."

"I might answer you, aunt, that Raoul showed himself cold and severe

towards me before the loss of my father and my poor mother--a loss that

would be irreparable to me but for the certainty of some day re-rising

into new life with that idolized mother, in the spirit world where we

shall all meet again."

"Your father's loss must, accordingly, be less irreparable to you than

your mother's," observed the Marchioness with some bitterness; "to say

the least, the difference that you establish in your grief for the

departed ones, is strange."

"Aunt," replied Bertha with a firm voice, "I respected my father and

adored my mother. She nursed me, brought me up, educated me. I never

left her. My happiest days were spent at her side in Brittany, in the

retirement of our Castle of Plouernel, where I spent my first eighteen

years, while all that time my father lived at court. I barely saw him

once every year for a short time during his transient visits to the

castle when the hunting season would bring him to his domains. So you

see, my mother has left me numerous tokens of remembrance. They were

continuous and loving, profoundly loving. They render, they will ever

render her loss--or rather, her absence--irreparable to me, at least in

this world. But let us return to Raoul. As I told you a moment ago, he

always showed himself, even when still young, cold and even haughty

towards me, whenever he accompanied my father into Brittany, and he felt

offended at my having my own way of looking at things, a way that

frequently was different from his own."

"The reason is, my dear, that for people of our class there is but one

way of looking upon a number of things--such as religion, morals,

politics--"

"In that case I must be an exception to the general rule; but that is of

no consequence. Believe me, aunt, I have the liveliest desire to find

myself mistaken with regard to Raoul's sentiments towards me; and, I

must admit it, I have been profoundly touched by his request to see me

at a time when, as I hear, he is seized with a grave disease, the

reality of which I still wish I could doubt. I did not expect such a

proof of tenderness on his part. And so, as I said before, I hope

Raoul's illness has not grown worse, seeing that, alas! like so many

others, he has preserved the prejudice of death, a thing that adds such

cruel agonies to all illness."

"The prejudice of death!" repeated the Marchioness, shrugging her

shoulders and hardly able to control herself. "That is one of your

extravagances! You set yourself up in rebellion against our holy

religion!"

"A sublime extravagance!" replied Bertha with a radiant smile. "It

suppresses superstitions; it frees us from the terror of decease; it

imparts to us the certainty of living anew near those whom we have

loved."

"My dear niece, I would take you to be out of your mind, were it not

that I know you really derive pleasure from such eccentricities. But

however that may be, I have the infirmity of sharing with your brother

and with so many other weak minds the vulgar prejudice of death. I hope,

and I have every reason to hope, that the state of Raoul's health,

although grave, is by no means alarming. Far away from his own country,

his family, his friends, but still considering it to be a sacred duty on

his part to remain in London in the service of the King our master, he

has fallen into a sort of listless languor, a black melancholy, and he

relies upon our presence, and yours especially, to dissipate his

distemper."

"A distemper of languor?" replied Mademoiselle Plouernel pensively. "It

seems to me such a disease is generally preceded by symptoms of

dejection and sadness; but Monsieur Noirmont said to us that when he

left Raoul, my brother's spirits, good looks and genuinely French

mirthfulness eclipsed the most brilliant seigneurs of the court of King

Charles II."

"Oh, I doubt not that! Poor Raoul is capable of the greatest sacrifices

in order worthily to represent his master, our great King; he would even

suppress his physical pains and moral sufferings."

"Excuse me, aunt, but I am unable to understand you. I was not aware

that my brother had a political mission to fill."

"And yet there is nothing more simple! Does not your brother, charged

with a mission to King Charles II during the absence of the French

ambassador Monsieur Croissy, represent his Majesty Louis XIV at London?

Consequently, however deep his melancholia may be, is not my nephew

bound to conceal it from the eyes of the English court, so as not to be

outdone in gracefulness, wit and mirth by the English courtiers, and to

continue to eclipse them all in honor of his master? Thus it is that

Raoul is fulfilling the duties imposed upon him by his mission to King

Charles. But," added the Marchioness, after this plausible answer to her

niece's objections, and wishing, moreover, to change the subject of a

conversation that embarrassed her, "but by the way of the good King

Charles--the name of that gallant and joyful prince leads me back to the

subject that we wandered from with this long digression upon my nephew.

I must repeat to you what I was saying and which your absentmindedness

at the moment prevented you from hearing. I was speaking of the

beautiful young Breton lady."

"What did you say about her, aunt?"

"I was saying: Admit that the lot of the beautiful Mademoiselle

Kerouaille, who is to-day the Duchess of Portsmouth, and one of the

greatest ladies of England, by reason of the favor that she has

received, is a lot worthy of envy."

Bertha of Plouernel shuddered; her beautiful and usually pale visage was

suffused by a blush; her black eyebrows contracted; and, gazing at the

Marchioness with undisguised amazement, she said:

"Is it to me that you put such a question?"

"What astonishes you, my dear?"

"You ask me whether the lot of Mademoiselle Kerouaille seems to me

worthy of being envied?"

"Why, yes, my dear child; the question is quite natural."

"You, then, despise me!" cried Mademoiselle Plouernel with an outburst

of indignation. "You, my father's sister! Oh, madam--madam!"

"Truly, niece, I drop from the clouds!" answered the Marchioness with

profound sincerity. "What! Do I despise you because I mention to you the

enviable lot of a noble young girl who has had the signal honor of

serving the interests of the great King, our neighbor--and of meriting

the affection and favors of such a powerful monarch!"

"Madam," replied Bertha, interrupting the Marchioness with a trembling

voice, "during the nearly eighteen months since I had the misfortune of

losing my mother, I have lived with you in Paris or Versailles; I

thought you knew me somewhat; I find that I am mistaken, since you look

surprised to see me revolt at infamy, and since you dare to ask me such

a question."

"Infamy! In truth, you are losing your mind, my dear niece."

"Not one, but many infamies," Bertha of Plouernel proceeded, with biting

satire. "Madam, I have no choice but to say so plainly to you. Thanks to

the licence in morals that reigns in your salon, at court and everywhere

else, I have despite myself learned things that a young girl should

never as much as suspect--the principles that guide the conduct of the

great world."

"And what did you learn, niece?"

"Among a thousand other indignities, I learned this, madam: King Charles

was still hesitating whether or not to declare war upon the Dutch

Republic, where we now are meeting with generous hospitality; Louis XIV

thereupon charged the Duchess of Orleans to overcome the indecision of

her brother Charles II by whatever means she could. She agreed; departed

for London equipped with a considerable sum of money and intentionally

leading in her train one of her ladies of honor, a young girl of

extraordinary beauty--Mademoiselle Kerouaille. And what was the purpose

that caused the Duchess of Orleans to take the handsome girl in her

company? It was for the purpose of delivering her to the King in return

for his declaration of war upon the Dutch. Lewdness matched with

treachery--infamy! Such is the statecraft of these monarchs!"

"One moment, niece. You are mistaken in your appreciations."

"Madam, I said there was not one but several infamies. Did I exaggerate?

Let us number them: speculating upon the dissoluteness of the King of

England, Louis XIV sends his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, to

fill the role of a coupler--is not that enough of an infamy? And when we

see that princess lowering herself to such an ignoble commerce, towards

whom? towards her own brother--is there not in that a double infamy?"

"Once more, my niece, what do you know about the negotiations between

princes?"

"Finally, Mademoiselle Kerouaille, an accomplice in the ignominious

transaction, sells herself to the King of England and accepts the duchy

of Portsmouth as the price of her public shame--a further infamy! Shame

upon these execrable beings!"

"You seem to forget that you speak of crowned heads!"

"It is true, madam! I forgot that a Prince of the Catholic Church,

Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux, dared to say, in the very house of God, in

the presence of the court, assembled on that occasion to hear the

funeral oration on the Duchess of Orleans: 'She went on a mission to

unite two kingdoms by _pleasing methods_, and her own _virtue_ was the

sole mediator between the two Kings.' Is such language not infamous

enough on the lips of a man invested with an august character?

Hypocrisy, servility, cowardice--what apanages to a priest who, rather

than corrupt, should purify the human race!"

After having first betrayed her sincere astonishment at the vehement

indignation of Mademoiselle Plouernel, and after a sense of suppressed

anger and even rage succeeded her astonishment, the Marchioness of

Tremblay collected herself, reflected for a moment, and promptly

imparting to her features the sweetest expression that they could

assume, and to her voice the most affectionate accents into which she

was capable of modulating it, she rose from her reclining chair and said

to her niece, who was still trembling with contempt and disgust:

"Dear child--come to my arms. Let me embrace you--you are an angel."

Not a little astonished at this outburst of tenderness, the young lady

hesitated to respond to the invitation of her aunt, who repeated:

"Yes, come and let me embrace you; you are a noble being, worthy of the

name that you carry; you are an angel, an archangel; you have issued

triumphant from a trial to which I wished to put you."

"A trial?" queried Mademoiselle Plouernel without any effort at

concealing her incredulity; but immediately after, and yielding to the

impulse of all pure and straightforward characters, who are ever more

disposed to believe good than evil, Bertha approached the Marchioness,

who, taking her niece in her arms, pressed the noble girl to her heart

and kissed her effusively.

"Blessed be God! It was only a trial!" repeated the young girl, smiling

with gratification and feeling her chest relieved of a heavy weight.

"But aunt, dear aunt, I mean not to reprove you--only those are tried

who are doubted. Did you doubt me?"

"No; of course not! But in our days one sees a King's love turn so many

young heads, even the most solid, that--"

"And you mistrusted the solidity of mine?"

"However certain I was, I wished, dear niece, to see you prove it in all

the luster of good judgment and purity. Only, and neither do I now mean

to convey a reproach, I do deplore that a young person of your birth

should, as it sometimes happens with you, forget herself to the point of

speaking irreverently of the priests, the bishops, the Princes of the

Church, and above all of the great King, our master, of whom your

brother has the honor of being one of the most faithful, the most

devoted servants."

"Aunt, let us not discuss the worthiness of Bossuet and his fellows, any

more than the worthiness of him whom you style your master; he never

will be mine. I have but one Master: He thrones in heaven."

"Do doubt; but after God, come the priests, the ministers, the Pope, the

bishops, and then comes the King, to whom we owe blind submission,

boundless devotion, pious respect."

"Pious respect! When at Versailles I saw that King promenading in public

in one carriage with the Queen his wife and his two mistresses--the old

and the new--Mademoiselle La Valiere and Madam Montespan! Is such

audacity in bad morals to be respected? No! I shall not respect that

infamous King who surrounds himself with high-born courtesans!"

"In truth, my dear, you are losing your reason. The violence of your

language! Where can you have drawn such principles from?"

"Excuse my Breton frankness, but I could not respect a person who

inspires me with aversion, disgust and contempt. What! That prince knows

how his scandalous amours afflict the Queen. He is aware of the

bitterness of the rivalry between La Valiere and Montespan! And yet,

without pity for the laceration of the hearts of those three women, he

forces them to gulp down the affront put upon them, to silently swallow

their mutual jealousy and resentment, to smother their shame. He forces

them to appear in public face to face; he drags them triumphantly after

him as if anxious to glory openly in his double adultery! Ah, I repeat

it, that ridiculous self-infatuation, that disregard of all sense of

chastity, that brutal disdain for all human feelings, that insolent

cynicism towards women--no, that never could inspire me with aught but

aversion, contempt and disgust!"

"Oh, my niece, in their fervent adoration of their much beloved

sovereign, La Valiere, Montespan and the Queen do as people do who make

to God a sacrifice of their pains--they offer their torn hearts to their

idol, the handsomest, the greatest King in the whole world!"

"Well, aunt, that theory becomes excessively hyperbolic. Have I not seen

him, that 'great King,' an undersized man in reality, seeking to add

inches to his stature with the aid of immoderately high heels and

enormous wigs! Tell me, deprived of his heels, his wigs and, above all,

his royal mantle, what, I pray you, is left of the 'idol'? Why, a little

stuffed and groomed crow! For the rest, a good carpet dancer, a still

better knight of the carrousel; always in red paint, severe, buttressed

in the majesty of his trappings, never laughing out of fear to expose

his villainous teeth, otherwise negligent of his appearance and never

shaving but every three days, passionately fond of perfumery in order to

conceal his bad breath, finally having, under the category of truly

'great' nothing to show except his appetite, to judge from his voracity,

which I once witnessed at Versailles on a gala day! But raillery carries

me away, and I blush, myself," added Mademoiselle Plouernel, whose

features quickly assumed an expression of deep sadness. "Am I ever to

forget that my mother's brother finished his days in a dungeon, the

victim of the iniquity of Louis XIV!"

CHAPTER III.

THE HUGUENOT COLONEL.

The Marchioness of Tremblay had her secret reasons to suppress her own

sentiments, and not to fulminate against what she termed the "enormities

of her niece," who, however, on this occasion, had given stronger vent

than ever before to her hostility for the "idol" who was desolating

Gaul. Accordingly, Bertha's aunt contented herself with a few forced

smiles, and seeking to give a different turn to the conversation that,

besides being generally distasteful to her, threw doubts into her mind

concerning the secret plans that she was pursuing, she observed in a

mild tone:

"After all, my dear, the unwonted vehemence of your language has its

excuse in this, that the contagion of the country on whose shores we

suffered shipwreck has smitten you. This wicked little heretical

republic, once so severely chastised by Louis XIV, has always held our

great King in particular aversion. The heretical and republican

pestilence must have mounted to your head; who knows," she added with an

affectation of archness, "but you may come out of the country a

full-fledged Huguenot."

"I should then have, at least, the consolation of knowing that I shall

not be the first or only Huguenot in our family," answered Mademoiselle

Plouernel, whose features the line of thought into which her aunt's

words threw her seemed suddenly to overcast with pensiveness; "I would

be but following the example of one of our ancestors who was not much of

a partisan of royalty. Was not my father's grandfather a Huguenot? Did

not Colonel Plouernel, as he was then called, take part in the religious

wars of the last century under the great Coligny, one of whose bravest

officers he proved himself? Did he not fight valiantly against the royal

and Catholic armies?"

"Alas, it is but too true. The apostasy of that Plouernel is a blot upon

our family. He was the youngest son of the family. After his eldest

brother, the Count, and the latter's son, the Viscount, were both killed

in the front ranks of the royal and Catholic army, at the battle of

Roche-la-Belle, fighting against the rebellious heretics, the Huguenot

colonel became by that catastrophe the head of our house, and came into

possession of its vast domains. Unfortunately, his son shared the

paternal vice of heresy, but at last his grandson, who was my father,

re-entered, thanks to God, the bosom of the Catholic Church, and resumed

the observance of our old traditions of love, respect and loyalty to our

Kings. Let us leave the two Plouernels, the only two unworthy members of

our family, buried in their double felony. We should endeavor to forget

that the two ever lived."

"It goes against my grain, aunt, to contradict you, but I can assure you

that Colonel Plouernel, by reason of his courage, his virtues and the

nobility of his character, is perhaps the only male member of whom our

family may be justly proud."

As Mademoiselle Plouernel was saying these last words she happened to

cast her eyes in the direction of the net awning that sheltered from the

rays of the sun the wide balcony near which she was seated. She remained

silent for a moment, while her eyes, looking intently into the space

that stretched before Monsieur Tilly's house, seemed to follow with so

much interest someone who was passing on the street, that, half rising

from her easy-chair, the Marchioness inquisitively asked her niece:

"What is it you see out there? You seem to be absorbed in deep

contemplation."

"I am looking at the young mariner whom you know," answered Bertha

without evincing the slightest embarrassment; "he was just passing with

a grey-haired man, I doubt not his father; there is a marked resemblance

between the two. Both have very sympathetic ways and faces."

"Of what mariner are you speaking, if you please? I know nobody of that

class."

"Why, aunt, can you have so soon forgotten the services rendered us when

we were in mortal danger--you who believe in death? Would not the

brigantine on which we embarked from Calais have foundered with every

living soul on board, had it not been for the heroic action of that

young mariner, French like ourselves, who braved the tempest in order to

come to our aid, and snatch us from the imminent danger that we ran?"

"Well! And did not Abbot Boujaron give the mariner ten louis in my name,

in payment for the service that he rendered us? We are quits with him."

"It is true--and immediately upon receiving the remuneration, which went

unaccompanied by a single courteous word, or a single expression that

came from the heart, the young mariner turned, threw the ten louis into

the cap of an invalid sailor who was begging on the wharf, and our

generous rescuer said with a smile to the poor man: 'Take this, my

friend, here are ten louis that Monsieur the Abbot gives you--for you to

pray for the absolution of his sins; we all need being prayed for,

abbots as much as anybody else.' And with a respectful salute he walked

away."

"And that was what I call a piece of extreme impertinence!" interjected

the Marchioness, interrupting her niece. "The idea of giving the ten

louis to the beggar to pray for the absolution of the Abbot's sins! Was

not that to insinuate that the holy man had a heavily loaded conscience?

I was not aware of the fellow's effrontery and ingratitude; I was still

too sea-sick and under the effect of the fright we went through. Well,

then, to return to the salt water rat, the fellow's disdain for the

remuneration offered him, cancels even more completely whatever debt we

may have owed him."

"That is not my opinion, aunt. Accordingly I requested our host,

Monsieur Tilly, to be kind enough to ascertain the name and address of

our brave countryman, who can only be a temporary resident of Delft--to

judge by what has been reported to me."

"And for what purpose did you make the _kind_ inquiry, dear niece?"

"I wish to commission Monsieur Tilly to assure our generous rescuer of

our gratitude, and to ask him to excuse the strange conduct of Monsieur

the Abbot towards him--excuses that, I must admit, I had not the courage

to offer on the spot; I felt so confused at the humiliation that he was

put to, and, besides, I felt too indignant at the conduct of the Abbot

to trust myself to speak to him. Just now, as I saw him crossing the

square--"

"You probably had a wish to call him from the window?" asked the

Marchioness suffocating with repressed anger. "Truly, dear niece, you

are losing your head more and more. Such a disregard for propriety on

the part of a person of your quality!"

"I never thought of calling our countryman out of the window; I was only

sorry that Monsieur Tilly did not happen to be with us at the time. He

might have gone out after him and asked him to step in."

"My dear, what you say upon this subject is so absurd, that I even

prefer to hear your praises of Colonel Plouernel--although that topic is

not of the most edifying."

"Nothing easier than to accommodate you, aunt," answered Bertha with a

smile that seemed to foreshadow numerous subjects for the suffocation of

the Marchioness. "In a manuscript left by Colonel Plouernel under the

title of 'Instructions to His Son' a most extraordinary fact was

recorded. In reminding his son of the antiquity of his family, which

goes back to the time of the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, the

colonel added the natural observation that there are no conquerors

without conquered, and that the Franks, from whom we of the noble race

claim to descend, despoiled and then enslaved the Gauls. He then

proceeded to say that a family of the Gallic race, a descendant of whom

the colonel became acquainted with at the siege of La Rochelle, handed

down to its own members from age to age, first, from the time of the

conquest of Gaul by the Romans, and then, from the conquest of the

country by the Franks, a series of legends that chronicled the trials

and misfortunes undergone by the several and succeeding members of that

family, which, strange coincidence! on the occasion of the frequent

uprisings of the enslaved Gauls, more than once fought arms in hand and

victoriously against the seigneurs of our own Frankish house! Our

ancestor, the colonel, approves and extols the right of conquered

peoples to rise in insurrection.

"Towards the end of the last century," Mademoiselle Plouernel proceeded

as in a revery, "during the siege of La Rochelle, Colonel Plouernel

became strongly attached by bonds of friendship to one of the

descendants of that Gallic family, an armorer by occupation, and one of

the bravest soldiers of Admiral Coligny. The armorer being, at the close

of the religious war, ardently desirous of returning to Brittany and

establishing himself there, in the ancient cradle of his family, which,

according to the chronicles of his kin, owned their fields not far from

Karnak, and Colonel Plouernel, on his part, wishing to do a kindness to

his friend, the armorer of La Rochelle, our ancestor offered the brave

Huguenot a long lease of the farm of Karnak, which he owned and which he

transmitted to his descendants together with the domain of Mezlean. But,

according to the feudal custom, 'use' and 'habitance' change after a

certain number of years into 'vassalage,' and so it has come about that

the descendants of the armorer, they never having left the domain of

Mezlean, are to-day vassals of my brother. My mother obtained the

certainty of this fact by ordering the bailiff of Plouernel to

communicate with the bailiff of Mezlean and inquire whether a family

named Lebrenn, that is the family's name, lived on the farm of Karnak.

The bailiff answered that in the year 1573 a man of that name had taken

the farm in lease and that the farm was still cultivated by the

descendants of the same family. I doubt not that, owing to the proximity

of the port of Vannes, the elder brother of the present farmer of Karnak

took to the sea, a calling that carries with it enfranchisement from

vassalage. Struck by the circumstances mentioned in the manuscript of

Colonel Plouernel, my mother arranged an excursion to Mezlean in order

to make the acquaintance of a family in so many ways interesting to

know. We were to make the journey only shortly before the fatal illness

that separated me from my mother--until the day when I shall live again

at her side in the world that she now inhabits," added Bertha with a

sigh, and she relapsed into pensive silence.

"But, in short, what conclusion did that Huguenot colonel, and do you,

draw from the, I must admit, extraordinary facts registered in that

manuscript? I find myself unable to follow your reasoning."

"The conclusion is simple and touching, it serves as the moral to the

manuscript left by Colonel Plouernel; he closes it with these words to

his son: 'My child, the death of my dear brother has made me master of

the immense domains of our house in Auvergne, in Beauvoisis and in

Brittany; thousands of vassals inhabit those domains. But never forget

this--our vast acres and large wealth as well as our nobility have for

their origin an iniquitous and bloody conquest; these lands that to-day

are ours and over which we lord it, once belonged to the Gauls who, from

being free, were dispossessed, subjugated and reduced to a frightful

condition of slavery by the Franks, our ancestors. Our present vassals

are the descendants of that disinherited race which has been

successively the slaves, serfs and vassals of our ancestors. Show

yourself, accordingly, charitable, compassionate, equitable, fraternal,

benevolent, obedient to the humane law of the Christian faith. Alas!

however generous your conduct may be towards them, never could it

expiate the wrongs to which our conquering race has subjected the Gallic

generations for now more than ten centuries. To the end that you may

know and entertain a just horror for so much iniquity and all the

sufferings that it entailed, I shall subjoin to these pages several

fragments of the history of a family of Gallic origin, the family of

Lebrenn of Karnak--'"

"Niece!" cried the Marchioness indignantly, "I can no longer listen to

such enormities!"

The Marchioness of Tremblay was interrupted in the flow of her

indignation by the entrance of Abbot Boujaron, her confessor, intimate

friend, and, in short, her paramour.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LOST LETTER.

Abbot Boujaron's worried looks, the disorder into which his wig, his

neckerchief and his cloak were thrown, threw the Marchioness of Tremblay

into such alarm that, wholly forgetting the subject of her conversation

with Mademoiselle Plouernel, she cried: "My God, Abbot, what has

happened? You are all upset; you seem to be in great excitement; you

look as if you had just come out of a scuffle."

"I have good reason to be uneasy, dear Marchioness. I have mislaid the

letter that we wrote this morning to your nephew--the confidential

letter that you know of."

"What!" replied the Marchioness visibly terrified. "Was not the letter

put carefully folded in the pocket of your coat? I put it there myself.

It can not have been mislaid."

"I was on my way to the house of the person whom, as we decided, I was

to call upon in order to obtain some further information from him and

add it to the letter, on which account it was left unsealed, when,

crossing a large square, I was overtaken and soon found myself

surrounded by a big crowd clamoring for the death of the De Witt

brothers and the French."

"What De Witt brothers?" asked the Marchioness. "Are they the two

intractable republicans whom Monsieur Estrade spoke to us about when he

returned from his embassy to this country?"

"They are both of them men cast in the mold of Plutarch, to judge by

what Monsieur Tilly, our host, was telling us of them yesterday,"

observed Mademoiselle Plouernel, emerging from the revery in which she

was steeped since the arrival of the Abbot; "I could not tire of hearing

him speak of the domestic virtues of the two brothers, whom he considers

to be the greatest living citizens of Holland, and men of distinguished

probity."

"My dear daughter," answered the Abbot, "our host belongs to the same

political party as those De Witts; as such he has his reasons to give

them a high place--in your estimation."

"But the letter," put in the Marchioness with increasing anxiety, "how

comes it to be mislaid, perhaps lost?"

"Swallowed up, as I found myself, by that loudly vociferating mob that

was rushing towards the prison where one of the two De Witt brothers is

confined; pushed, hustled, shoved about, and almost suffocated by that

plebeian flood, the current of which was carrying me away despite all

that I could do, I made frantic efforts to extricate myself from the

surging crowd; in my struggle my frock was unfastened, and I suppose the

letter dropped out as I was being whirled about--unless I inadvertently

pulled it out myself when I took my handkerchief to wipe the

perspiration that streamed down my forehead, after I had finally

succeeded in getting clear of the bawling, threatening and swearing

mob."

"I am distracted at the loss of that letter. It may fall into the hands

of and be read by some indiscreet fellow--you understand me,

Abbot?--that would be most disagreeable and compromising."

"I understand you but too well, Marchioness! Only too well! I therefore

went twice over the road that I traveled, but all in vain; I could not

find the letter! Most unfortunately it was unsealed. The most scrupulous

man would have been justified to cast his eyes over it--and thus inform

himself upon its contents."

"Truly, aunt," put in Mademoiselle Plouernel, "I fail to understand the

deep anxiety that the loss of a letter, that seems to have been written

to my brother in order to inform him of the delay in our arrival in

England, can cause you and Monsieur the Abbot. The matter is a trifle;

it can have no serious results; cease to fret about it."

"There are things, my niece, the wide bearings of which you can not

understand," answered the Marchioness of Tremblay sententiously; "it is

enough that you know that the loss of this letter is most regrettable."

At this moment the Marchioness's lackey entered the room after

announcing himself with a rap at the door, and said to his mistress:

"Madam, there is a man who asks to see Monsieur the Abbot without delay

on an important matter."

"Who is he?"

"He is a Frenchman, madam."

"Does he seem to be noble?"

"Yes, madam, he carries a sword."

"Marchioness," said the Abbot excitedly as if struck by a sudden

thought, "it may be this individual found the letter, and is bringing it

back to me. God be praised! our alarm will be at end! Oh, I hope it may

be so!"

"But how could the stranger know your address?"

"Did I not write to Raoul that we were stopping with Monsieur Tilly?"

"In that case, Abbot," replied the Marchioness with an accent of extreme

apprehension, "the stranger must have read the letter! We would have a

stranger informed upon our plans! We must have light upon this, and

quickly."

And addressing the lackey:

"Introduce the stranger immediately, and then withdraw."

"The more I think upon it," said Mademoiselle Plouernel to herself,

astonished and pensive, "all the more unexplainable does my aunt's and

the Abbot's uneasiness seem to me."

The personage whom the lackey introduced into the salon was a man of

about forty-five years of age; he was simply dressed, without lace or

embroidery; for all sign of rank he wore on his shoulders a scarlet knot

of the color of the feather in his grey felt hat, and the ribbon of his

sword that hung from a leather baldric. The tawny complexion of the

stranger, his quick, penetrating eye, black as his moustache, seemed to

indicate a southern extraction. Of middle size, robust and sinewy,

resolute in his port and endowed with a physiognomy in which

intelligence and wit vied with boldness, everything about him revealed

a man of energy and decision, but so completely master of himself that

nothing, except what he had no interest in concealing, would be allowed

to rise to the surface. The new personage presented himself in the salon

with complete ease, bowed respectfully to the Marchioness and her niece,

and looked from the one to the other in silence with so marked, so fixed

a gaze, that the Marchioness of Tremblay felt embarrassed and said to

her niece:

"Come, Bertha, let us withdraw to my chamber, and leave Monsieur the

Abbot with monsieur."

Bertha of Plouernel was preparing to follow her aunt when, after having

again contemplated the young maid, the stranger bowed once more to the

Marchioness, and said:

"If Madam the Marchioness will allow, the interview that I desire to

hold with her and with monsieur, Abbot Boujaron, will take place in the

presence of Mademoiselle Plouernel. It is proper, it is even necessary

that this should be."

"You know us, monsieur?" said the Marchioness, not a little astonished.

"You know our names?"

"I have the honor, madam; and my little knowledge extends further than

that," answered the stranger with a singular smile, again casting a

penetrating glance at Mademoiselle Plouernel, as if he sought to judge

her mind by the expression on her face. On his face, in turn, the

evidence of a heightening interest in the girl could be detected. But as

these manifestations passed unperceived by Bertha, she felt hurt by the

persistence of the stranger's gaze, she blushed, and taking a step

towards the door of her aunt's chamber said to the Marchioness:

"Excuse me, aunt, if I go and leave you with the gentlemen."

"Mademoiselle," said the stranger warmly, as he divined the maid's

thoughts, "I conjure you, do not impute the obstinacy of my gaze to a

disregard of the respect due you, and with which I am profoundly

penetrated; I sought to read and I did read on your features the

uprightness and nobility of your heart; I doubly congratulate myself on

being able to render you a service, a great service."

"Me, monsieur?" answered Mademoiselle Plouernel in great astonishment,

yet struck by the accent of unquestionable sincerity in the stranger's

words. "What service can you render to me, me whom you do not know, and

whom you now see for the first time? Be kind enough to explain yourself

more clearly."

"Monsieur," said the Marchioness haughtily to the stranger, as he was

about to answer Bertha, "you introduced yourself into this house under

pretext of soliciting an interview, which Monsieur Abbot Boujaron has

condescended to grant you. That notwithstanding, you have hitherto

addressed mademoiselle only--a violation of propriety towards me and

Monsieur the Abbot."

"Moreover, monsieur," added the Abbot, "we are wholly in the dark as to

who you are. Your language is as strange as your visit."

"I am your obedient servant, Monsieur Abbot," answered the stranger,

bowing with sardonic courtesy, "and I shall, if you please, answer

Mademoiselle Plouernel, who has done me the honor of asking me what the

service is that I am happy enough to be able to render her. The service

is summed up in this simple advice: Mademoiselle, go not to England;

refuse to undertake the voyage."

A tremor ran over Bertha's frame; for an instant she remained dumb with

stupefaction, while, scarlet with confusion and apprehension, both her

aunt and the Abbot exchanged significant looks that betrayed their

embarrassment. Struck speechless for an instant, Mademoiselle Plouernel

turned to the stranger and asked:

"And why, monsieur, do you warn me against the journey to England?"

"For two reasons, mademoiselle, two important reasons--"

"Monsieur," the Abbot interrupted the stranger with, in an icy tone, "I

wish to call your attention, first, to the fact that you have committed

a breach of confidence; secondly, that you have not understood a word of

the letter that you found and that you took the freedom of reading--an

indiscretion that a man of good breeding would have carefully guarded

against."

"And I, in turn, will call your attention, Monsieur Abbot," retorted the

stranger, "first, to the fact that to read an unsealed letter, found on

the pavement of a public thoroughfare, is no breach of confidence;

secondly, that, without priding myself on being gifted with

extraordinary intellectual power, yet am I intelligent enough to

understand the value of words. For that reason I have advised

mademoiselle not to go to England, and resolutely to refuse to

undertake the journey."

"Monsieur," broke in Bertha with profound feeling, as she yielded to a

sudden and painful sense of danger that flashed through her mind. "I ask

it as a favor of you, explain yourself clearly. Be good enough to give

me your reasons for the advice."

"One moment, my dear child," the Abbot hastened to interpose, in order

to parry off the stranger's answer; "I am the writer of that letter; it

is for me to speak intelligently upon it. I can tell monsieur that the

despatch which he read is addressed to an envoy of his Majesty Louis XIV

at the court of his Majesty Charles II, and that it deals with very

delicate affairs of state. Now, then, I must add, that unless one be the

most reckless of men, which I certainly am not, one does not conduct a

correspondence upon matters of such a nature, except in cipher, or by

means of enigmatic phrases, that bear a double sense, both of which seem

perfectly logical on their face, but the real purport of which remains

secret between the correspondents themselves, who are alone able to

interpret it. It will be well for monsieur to understand that."

"If that is the case, Monsieur Abbot, there will be nothing left to me

but to admit a mistake," replied the stranger with mock humility, "a

mistake, however, that was quite excusable, and of which I request

Mademoiselle Plouernel herself to be the judge," he added, taking the

letter out of his pocket, "from the terms in which this interesting

missive is couched."

"Monsieur, the reading of the letter is wholly superfluous, it being

established that the letter no wise concerns mademoiselle."

"No doubt," replied the stranger, "mademoiselle is not touched upon in

it except in an enigmatic and mysterious manner. Accordingly, when

Monsieur the Abbot writes to Monsieur the Count of Plouernel:

"We have all reason to hope that your sister's matchless beauty

will produce a lively impression upon the King of England when she

is presented to him, and may induce him to decide--"

"But, monsieur, that is intolerable!" cried the Marchioness, "you are

outrageously abusing our patience--you compel me to request that you

leave our presence!"

"Monsieur, I listen to you," observed Mademoiselle Plouernel, "and

believe me, I shall never forget the service that you will have rendered

me. Be kind enough to continue the reading of the letter."

Recognizing the futility of any further objection to the reading of the

despatch, the Marchioness and the Abbot crossed their arms, raised their

eyes to heaven and assumed the appearance of resigned innocence.

Addressing himself to Bertha the stranger proceeded:

"I shall pass over the details of the incident at sea that obliged the

vessel on which you, mademoiselle, had embarked, to put in at the port

of Delft. I now come to the interesting portion of the letter:

"You informed us, my dear Raoul, that the influence is on the wane

of Mademoiselle Kerouaille, who is now the Duchess of Portsmouth

and was taken to Charles II by his sister, Madam the Duchess of

Orleans, at the beginning of this year in order to urge the

libertine King more effectively, by means of the charms of the

beautiful Krouaill and a present of a few millions, to sign the

treaty of alliance between England and France against the Republic

of the United Provinces; you add that, in even measure as the

influence of the Duchess of Portsmouth wanes, waxes the ascendency

of my Lord Arlington, a bitter partisan of the alliance between

England, Spain and the United Provinces, over the vacillating and

profligate Rowley, as the familiars of Charles II call his Majesty,

and that the said my Lord Arlington has for his assistant and agent

a certain Nell Gwynne, a low-lived creature, an incarnate

she-devil, who swears, curses, drinks and gets drunk like a

trooper, but whose sprightliness, noisy hilarity and brazenness

seem greatly to delight his Majesty. From all of this it may hap,

as you indicate, that, aided by the nymph and the doubloons of

Spain and the Republic, King Charles, after having tired of

Mademoiselle Kerouaille and dissipated the present of several

millions bestowed upon him by our own master under the pretext of

_catholicity_, may go so far as to break the alliance with France

and return to the alliance with Spain and the Republic of the

United Provinces. Meditation upon those grave possibilities

suggested the thought to you, my dear pupil, that the magnificent

eyes and challenging beauty of our own Bertha might operate a

salutary change in the now unfavorable disposition of old Rowley,

counterbalance the influence of Nell Gwynne, and confirm King

Charles in his alliance with our master. Struck by the importance

of your suggestion, over which madam your aunt and I have long

reflected, the expedient seemed excellent to us and also so

pressing, that, without answering you, and resorting to an innocent

ruse, we have persuaded your sister that you were taken so

seriously ill as to induce her to proceed with us to England. We

prepared the agreeable surprise for you, but the violent storm of

which I gave you a sketch compelled us to put in at Delft. I am now

writing to you from The Hague, in order that you may not feel

uneasy at the prolonged delay in our answer.

"So then, my dear pupil, at our speedy arrival in England you are

expected to have so completely recovered from your sickness, with

the help of God, that there will be no trace of it left to be seen.

You will then hasten to present at the court of London Madam the

Marchioness of Tremblay and Mademoiselle Plouernel. So that, unless

our justified expectations should unhappily be dashed, King

Charles, dazzled by the matchless beauty of our Bertha, will be set

aflame as usual. We have all reason to hope that your sister's

matchless beauty will produce a lively impression upon the King of

England when she is presented to him, and may induce him to decide

to continue the alliance with France against the United Provinces.

"I must admit, my dear boy, that I contemplate with no less delight

than yourself the huge satisfaction that such a result must afford

our master; and I can well understand how in your letter you

judiciously passed in review the prodigious favors that were

showered upon Monsieur Vivonne from the time that his sister, the

Marchioness of Montespan, was honored with the attention of the

King, and had the august honor of presenting him with progeny.

Accordingly, if our project succeed as we wish, although the affair

will have to happen in England, you will not therefore, my dear

pupil, in what concerns the favor of our master, be any less the

_Vivonne_ of our beautiful _Montespan_.

"I wish to add that, having put my sojourn at The Hague to good

use, I have come to the conclusion, arrived at upon my own

observation and after certain conversations that I had with a

member of our Society, who is not suspected of belonging to us, A.

M. D. G. (conversations, the import of which I shall add at the

post-script of this letter, which I shall seal at the house of the

good father) I have come to the conclusion that a formidable blow

can be dealt to this bedeviled Republic, this hot-bed of heresy,

by--"

But the stranger broke off his reading of the letter, and addressing

Mademoiselle Plouernel:

"The rest of the missive only refers to some confidential communications

from a member of the Society of Jesus, to which Monsieur the Abbot has

the privilege of belonging, or, rather, with which he is affiliated.

These confidential communications, mademoiselle, are of no interest

whatever to you, since they only refer to the affairs of the Republic.

When I read this letter, which fell into my hands by the merest

accident, I revolted at the thought of the unworthy role prepared for a

young girl who was ignorant of such machinations, and was, perhaps,

worthy of profound respect. Accordingly, I decided to enlighten her upon

the dark plot that was being concocted against her. Such, mademoiselle,

was the only purpose of my visit to this house; and when I read in your

face the nobility of your heart, and the loftiness of your sentiments I

applauded myself doubly for having been able to inform and warn you

concerning the disgraceful projects of your aunt, and to enlighten you

upon an odious intrigue."

An interval of silence followed the communication of Abbot Boujaron's

diplomatic missive and the last words of the stranger. Although nailed

to the floor with consternation, both the Marchioness and the Abbot were

astonished at seeing Mademoiselle Plouernel listen to the reading of the

letter without the slightest interruption. Indeed, the young girl

remained speechless, overwhelmed; her eyes were fixed in space, her

bosom heaved, and her lips were contracted in a desolate smile.

"Monsieur," she finally said, addressing the stranger with an accent of

profound gratitude, "it goes beyond my power to express to you my

gratitude for having judged me favorably, and I shall, in your presence,

declare my thoughts in full upon this affair to my aunt, the Marchioness

of Tremblay." And addressing her aunt in a collected voice she proceeded

deliberately: "I now know, madam, how you and my brother proposed to

exercise towards me the guardianship with which you were entrusted; I

shall spare you my reproaches; they could not be understood of you; you

lack the moral sense; but this much I here declare to you--I shall not

go to England, and I am resolved no longer to live with you, madam,

neither at Paris nor at Versailles; I shall henceforth never leave

Brittany; I shall reside at Plouernel or at Mezlean, having the right to

live in my father's house."

"My God, mademoiselle," replied the Marchioness with sardonic

bitterness, "your virtue is strangely resentful and savage! Why such a

display of anger? Your brother considered that your presence at the

court in London might be of some service to the King our master. Where

is the harm in that, I ask you to tell me? Would you not remain free, at

full liberty to encourage or reject his Britannic Majesty's advances? If

not to you, then there will be others to whom King Charles may address

his homage."

"Monsieur, did you hear?" said Mademoiselle Plouernel, turning towards

the stranger and unable to conceal the disgust that her aunt's words

caused her. "Could the infamous thought be expressed more

discreetly--the thought that my dishonor should subserve the violence,

the cupidity, the ambition and the vainglory of princes bent upon

oppressing the people!"

"Mademoiselle," said the stranger, deeply affected and struck with the

admirable expression of the young girl's features as she uttered the

lofty words that he had just heard, "some day, perhaps, I may remind you

of your brave malediction of the oppressors."

Not a little surprised at these words, Mademoiselle Plouernel was about

to ask the stranger for an explanation, when Monsieur Tilly entered the

salon. The new arrival seemed a prey to overpowering emotion. His face

looked haggard, his gait was almost tottering. The moment, however, that

he noticed the presence of the stranger, he hastened to him, saying:

"Monsieur Serdan, do you know what is going on in the city?"

And taking him aside Monsieur Tilly spoke to Monsieur Serdan for several

minutes in a low voice, after having politely excused himself with the

Marchioness for holding in her presence a private conversation, the

gravity and urgency of the subject being his apology for such

discourteous conduct.

"That bad man's name is Serdan. Do not forget it, Marchioness,"

whispered the Abbot; "he must be one of our King's enemies--and also an

enemy of the holy Society of Jesus. Forget not his name--_Serdan_."

"I shall remember it well, my dear Abbot; and there will be others to

learn it also. Oh, if we only were in France! A _lettre de cachet_ would

throw the insolent fellow into the Bastille, he would sleep there this

very night, and he never would come out again."

Mademoiselle Plouernel relapsed into her own painful train of thoughts,

while her aunt and the Abbot exchanged a few words in a low voice, and

Monsieur Tilly continued to impart the news of the day to Monsieur

Serdan, who, after hearing him to the end, exclaimed: "But that would be

monstrous! No! No! Impossible!"

"After what I have just learned, there is hardly any room left to doubt

the execrable iniquity that is about to be perpetrated," put in Monsieur

Tilly. "For the rest, within an hour, I shall know all--we shall then

take council together."

"But what does John De Witt think of all this?"

"Relying upon his brother's innocence and upon the justice of the

tribunal, can he remotely suspect such barbarity? I shall proceed to his

house after issuing orders to the cavalry of The Hague, which I command

and with which I can count, to keep themselves ready to take horse. I

anticipate a serious riot."

"I shall meet you at John De Witt's house. There are two of my

countrymen from Brittany whom I wish to introduce to him. Until you deny

or confirm the horrible tidings that you have just imparted to me, and

which I must still doubt, I shall not say a word to John De Witt on the

subject," answered Monsieur Serdan.

And making a profound bow to Bertha of Plouernel: "Should I never again

have the honor of meeting you, mademoiselle, I shall ever preserve the

most touching remembrance of the loftiness of your sentiments. But

should I meet you again, I shall allow myself to remind you of the noble

words that you uttered in favor of the downtrodden."

As he was about to leave the room, Monsieur Serdan said to Monsieur

Tilly: "I shall await you at John De Witt's residence. Do not delay."

"I shall be there shortly, so soon as my dispositions are taken,"

answered Monsieur Tilly.

Upon Monsieur Serdan's departure, Madam Tremblay assumed her most

smiling expression and observed to Monsieur Tilly:

"What an amiable man this Monsieur Serdan is! Tell us, I pray you,

monsieur, where is he from? where does he belong? who is he? what is his

rank? We feel particularly interested in him. We should be pleased to be

edified on that subject."

"Please excuse me, Marchioness," answered Monsieur Tilly, "at this

moment I am pressed for time and have no leisure to post you fully upon

Monsieur Serdan. He is an honorable man and close friend of mine. I came

in haste to impart to you, madam, some rather disagreeable

news--terrible things that our city is just now the theater of."

"What is the matter, monsieur?" inquired the Marchioness. "This morning

the Abbot noticed considerable excitement among the populace. Are

matters assuming a grave aspect?"

"Yes, madam, there is an intense excitement in The Hague. It is the

result of two circumstances--one, the manoeuvres of the agents of the

Prince of Orange, the head of the party opposed to that of the De Witt

brothers; the other--pardon, madam, the frankness of my words--the other

circumstance is the report of the atrocities committed in our country by

the armies of Louis XIV. There are letters circulating in The Hague

to-day from several of our provinces which the royal troops have

invaded. The atrocities that those letters report the French army guilty

of have exasperated our people. Our party is charged with connivance in

these deeds, and even with complicity in the treachery of Louis XIV

towards the Republic; and we are referred to as the _French party_

because our party sustains the policy of the De Witts in the matter of a

French alliance. I enter into these details, madam, in order to inform

you that, such is the popular effervescence at this moment, you would

run grave risks if you were to be seen on the streets and recognized as

French. I therefore take the liberty to impress upon you, as well as

upon Mademoiselle Plouernel and the Abbot, the wisdom of remaining

indoors to-day. Finally, should there be any serious disorders on the

streets, do not show yourselves at the windows. Even so, I pray to God

that the house may be respected in case popular passion becomes

inflamed, as I much fear it will be. I need not add, madam, how painful

it is to me to find the hospitality, that it has been my honor to tender

to you, disturbed in such a way!"

Mademoiselle Plouernel listened in silence to this conversation, and

seeing both her aunt and the Abbot turn pale, even tremble and exchange

frightened looks, the young girl said to them with bitter irony: "What

else do you expect? We are not here at the court of Versailles! Here the

perjury, the iniquity, the deeds of violence of your master appear in

their true and horrible colors. Who knows but this very day the deserved

execration, inspired by 'Louis the Great' for himself, may cost us our

lives! Oh! Thank God, it is only with joy that I would at this hour

leave this world, to reunite myself with my mother!"

Mademoiselle Plouernel owed to her mother her virile hatred of wrong,

her independent spirit, her opinions so wholly at variance with those

that prevailed at court. To her mother also she owed her firm faith in

immortality, the faith of our own Gallic forefathers. Brought up in the

Reformed religion, Madam Plouernel was forced to embrace Catholicism

when still quite young, and yielding to the importunities of her father

and mother, she espoused the Count of Plouernel. At the bottom of her

heart, however, she preserved, her abjuration notwithstanding, that

"Huguenot leaven," the generous ferment of which imparts to the

character sooner or later a spirit of independence, and of free inquiry.

Madam Plouernel's marriage was far from being a happy one. After she

presented two sons to her husband, he, feeling certain of the

continuance of his stock, ceased to pay any regard to his wife. Intent

upon indulging his scandalous amours, he left her in Brittany in the

Castle of Plouernel, where she was thenceforth to live in absolute

seclusion, with no other care or happiness than the education of her

youngest child Bertha.

The Countess had a brother, who was tenderly devoted to her. Bold and of

an adventurous disposition, he devoted himself to the navy. When still a

young man he commanded a royal frigate. Having remained a Huguenot, like

his admiral, Duquesne, he detested the despotism of Louis XIV, and never

made his appearance at court. Dearly loving his sister, and well

acquainted with the immoral character of the Count of Plouernel, he

sought, though in vain, to dissuade his family from a marriage the sad

consequences of which he clearly foresaw, and he embarked upon a long

and distant cruise. Kept far away from France by a variety of events, he

learned, upon his return home, of the sort of exile that his sister was

doomed to, and of the excesses of her husband. Sorrow and indignation

carried away the impetuous mariner. He proceeded to Versailles, and

there, in a crowded gallery, in plain view of all the courtiers, he

stepped straight toward the Count of Plouernel, overwhelmed him with

bitter reproaches, and forgot himself to the point of exclaiming:

"Monsieur, the infamous cynicism of your conduct and your shameless acts

of adultery are an outrage to my sister and a flattery to your master!"

This allusion to the amours of Louis XIV was speedily carried to the

despot's ears. He flew into a violent rage, and that same day the Count

of Plouernel's brother-in-law was taken to the Bastille and thrown into

one of its unhealthiest dungeons, where he was left to languish for the

space of two years, at the end of which he died. Her brother's

imprisonment and death afflicted Madam Plouernel profoundly, and steeped

her heart in irreconcilable detestation for Louis XIV. This fresh sorrow

increased her domestic infelicity. She divided her time between Bertha's

education, study and reading. The library of the castle, established a

generation before by Colonel Plouernel, consisted in part of works

imbued with the spirit of the political and religious independence of

the Reformation. The Countess nourished her mind with the virile

substance of those writings. Her favorite books were those which

breathed the strictness of morals, the loftiness of thought, the

inflexible love of justice, the austerity of honesty that the avowed

enemies of the Huguenots themselves give them credit for. Among the

books collected by Colonel Plouernel she found an admirable treatise on

the druid creed and traditions, "thanks to which the Gauls were freed

from the evil of death," inasmuch as they looked upon death as the

signal for a complete re-birth towards which the soul winged its way

radiant and reclad in a fresh garb. This faith in the immortality of our

being, in spirit and matter, the passionate curiosity kindled by the

thought of incessant migrations through unknown and mysterious worlds,

in short, that creed, so consoling to hearts that are crushed under the

weight of present sorrows, soon became the faith of Madam Plouernel, and

imparted a powerful impulse to the development of her noble qualities.

Brought up in almost complete seclusion by a mother who adored her, and

in whom she, in turn, reposed absolute faith, Bertha of Plouernel could

not choose but imbibe the maternal convictions and opinions. In what

concerned the recent ignoble action of her own family, Bertha's

sentiments flowed also from the philosophy of her training. Her aunt and

Abbot Boujaron, thrown into consternation by the tidings brought to them

by Monsieur Tilly with regard to the popular indignation in The Hague

against Louis XIV and the French, remained a prey to distressing

apprehensions, while Monsieur Serdan hastened away to the residence of

John De Witt, the Grand Pensionary of Holland.

CHAPTER V.

JOHN DE WITT.

Cornelius and John De Witt were the sons of Jacob De Witt, a citizen

illustrious by his patriotism and his learning, and formerly one of the

principal leaders of the Lowenstein party. That party, representing as

it did the republican traditions of the Low Countries, as contrasted

with the military spirit, tended above all to promote the maritime

preponderance that the confederation of the United Provinces was

entitled to enjoy by reason of her geographic position and the

mercantile genius of her population. Accordingly, the Lowenstein party

had, for half a century, been opposing the influence of the Orangemen,

partisans of the military and hereditary principle of government

represented by the Princes of Orange. The hereditary Stadtholdership,

coupled with the functions of captain general of the military and naval

forces, was in reality a sort of royalty, qualified, it is true, yet

dangerous to the people's liberty. Accordingly, the Lowenstein party

caused the States General to enact a decree which disqualified the

Princes of the house of Orange from holding the Stadtholdership and at

the same time the supreme command of the military and naval forces, and

provided, furthermore, that the said offices were not to be hereditary.

Cornelius De Witt, the elder of the two brothers, was born at Dortrecht

in 1623, and, at the age of twenty-three was elected a deputy of his

city and _ruart_ (inspector general of the dikes) in the district of

Putten--an office of great importance in that country where the dikes

protect agriculture, and may, at a critical moment, become an important

means of defense by being broken down--a redoubtable piece of strategy

in the event of a foreign invasion. Cornelius De Witt, a man of antique

virtues, and, like his brother, endowed with wide attainments, did not

confine himself to affairs of state. Having since earliest boyhood

applied his mind to nautical science and become a skilled mariner, he

contributed powerfully with his advice during the present war to the

successful attack made by the fleet of Holland upon the English port of

Chatham, a victory that was at once disastrous and shameful to the

British navy. Finally, on the occasion of the naval battle delivered

this very year to the British and French fleets by Admiral Ruyter in the

roadstead of Solway, Cornelius De Witt, seated in his capacity of

commissioner of the admiralty of the Republic, in an ivory chair at the

most perilous post, the rear castle of the admiral's ship, faced with

heroic calmness the murderous fire poured upon him by the enemy, and

thus witnessed impassibly the glorious combat, the plan for which he

laid down in concert with Ruyter.

John De Witt, his brother's junior by over two years, excelled Cornelius

as a statesman, and equalled him in civic virtues and courage. Elected

about 1662 Pensionary of Holland, or the executive agent of the

Republic, and thus placed at the head of the government, John De Witt's

love for his country assumed a religious character. He looked upon his

office as a ministry. Inaccessible by the natural loftiness of his

nature to the intoxicating allurements of power, that great man's

simplicity and modesty never were belied by his acts; neither did ever

his respect for justice, for duty and for pledged faith falter before

the pretext of 'necessities of state.' Charged with the diplomatic

relations of the United Provinces, he balked the snares, the perfidies

and the underground manoeuvres of the foreign ambassadors by the mere

rectitude of his character and the penetration of his judgment. One

instance among many, in this great citizen's life, may suffice to depict

him. He inspired such confidence even in his adversaries, that the

Princess of Orange entrusted to him the direction of her son's

education, aware though she was of John De Witt's hostility to the

hereditary Stadtholdership in the house of Orange. The only descendant

of that family, destined to become the head of the Orangemen's party,

was thus entrusted by the most enlightened of mothers to the care of

John De Witt. He watched over the child with paternal solicitude,

endeavoring to attune the youthful soul to sentiments of generosity, to

inspire him with a love for the Republic that he was to serve as a

citizen, and disclosing to him the misfortunes he would conjure up upon

his country if he ever became the instrument of the party that used his

name for a flag. Alas! the efforts of John De Witt failed before the

consummate dissimulation of the morose, frail, sickly, nervous lad, who

seemed ever to be wrapped in himself, who concealed his ardent

aspirations under an impassive exterior, and who, when he arrived at

man's estate, was this year to repay John De Witt's paternal kindness

with the blackest ingratitude.

The following was the sequence of events: About six weeks before, John

De Witt spent a part of the night in considering affairs of state in his

cabinet at the palace of the States General. Towards two o'clock in the

morning he left for home, preceded by a valet bearing a torch.

Unexpectedly a band of men, armed with swords and knives, leaped from

ambush and fell upon him. He received a saber cut over the neck;

although unarmed he struggled bravely and received three more wounds,

the last of which was so serious that he fell down upon the pavement.

Believing him dead the assassins took to their heels. De Witt succeeded

in rising to his feet and reaching his residence. The assassins were

four in number--the two brothers Van der Graeff, Adolf Borrebugh, the

Post Office Commissioner of Maestricht, and Cornelius De Bruyn, an

officer in The Hague militia. Only one of the two Van der Graeff

brothers could be arrested. The other brother and his two accomplices

succeeded in fleeing to a place of safety--the camp of the young William

of Orange, who was appointed commandant of the land forces when the war

broke out against France and England. The Prince was summoned to deliver

the murderous assailants of John De Witt. He refused.

From that moment suspicions of William of Orange's complicity in the

crime gathered against him. Only he and his party had an interest in the

death of John De Witt, who, notwithstanding the disorder that the

government was thrown into by the misfortunes of the war, was striving

to avert the dangers with which the Prince of Orange threatened the

Republic from within, while Louis XIV was attacking it from without. But

it was not enough for the Orangemen to have armed assassins against John

De Witt; his brother--Cornelius De Witt, the _ruart_ of Putten--was also

to be disposed of. A horrible scheme was concocted.

Notwithstanding his high office of Grand Pensionary of Holland, John De

Witt, a modest man in his tastes, lived with the utmost simplicity,

seeking in the company of his wife and his two daughters Agnes and Mary

sweet distractions from the cares that weigh upon a statesman. At the

period of this narrative he was close to his forty-eighth year. His tall

stature, his kind yet grave face, his thoughtful mien, imparted to him

an imposing appearance. On this occasion he was writing, alone in his

cabinet, a spacious room the walls of which were concealed behind long

shelves loaded with books. Above the mantlepiece hung the picture of the

father of the two De Witts--an austere face, painted after the manner of

Rembrandt. A table, heaped up with papers, stood in the embrasure of a

tall window with little square panes of glass held in a lozenge-work of

lead, on either side of which were shelves with instruments of physics;

for the Grand Pensionary was, like his brother, a lover of the sciences.

Seated at the table, pensive and sad, John De Witt was writing to his

friend, Admiral Ruyter, the following remarkable letter that bore the

stamp of antique simplicity, and in which the plot, concocted by the

Orangemen against Cornelius De Witt, was unveiled:

TO ADMIRAL RUYTER:

My dear Sir and good friend:--I have received the letter that you

did me the honor of writing on the 25th of last month to express to

me your deep sorrow at the wounds that I received. Thanks to God, I

am now almost completely healed: Three of the wounds are closed;

the fourth, and most painful of all, is on the way to be likewise

closed. The envy with which certain malignant people pursue our

family has reached such extremes in these unhappy days, that, after

attempting to rid themselves of me by assassination, they are now

seeking to rid themselves of my brother, the _ruart_ of Putten,

through legal process. You will surely have learned that the fiscal

attorney has caused him to be arrested by order of the States of

Holland, and had him brought here, where he is at present under

arrest at the castle. We could not at first surmise the cause, or

at least the pretext, for his imprisonment. To-day we know the plot

that has been concocted against my brother. It is this: A surgeon

named William Tichelaar accused my brother with unheard of

brazenness and impudence of having endeavored to corrupt him with a

large sum of money to assassinate the Prince of Orange! My brother,

being incapable of conceiving so execrable a scheme, and less still

of executing it, I am firmly convinced that, seeing it pleased God

to deliver me, as if by a miracle, from the murderous hands that

sought to assassinate me, He will not allow innocence to fall a

victim to slander and calumny. My brother will doubtlessly escape

the snares that are spread against him, as I escaped the daggers of

my implacable enemies.

Tichelaar, the informer against my brother, was a short time ago

summoned by him, in his capacity of _ruart_ of Putten, before the

court of that district to answer the charge of attempted rape.

Tichelaar was convicted and a sentence was pronounced fastening

upon him the stain of moral turpitude. That man, now branded with

infamy, sought to revenge himself against my brother by a horrible

calumny. Furthermore, we know from reliable sources the following

details: Three weeks ago Tichelaar went to my brother's house at

Dortrecht, and requested a private interview with him. My

sister-in-law, his wife, having opened the door to the man and

admitted him to the house, but fearing (after what had happened to

me) that he might have evil designs against the _ruart_, ordered

one of the servants to keep near the door of the room, and to be on

the alert, should Tichelaar attempt violence against my brother.

The servant testified under oath before the court commissioner that

having been posted near the door, he heard Tichelaar offer to

reveal certain secrets to the _ruart_, to which my brother, knowing

Tichelaar for a dishonorable character, answered:

"If what you have to say is something proper, I shall be ready to

hear you and give you help; if, however, it is something improper,

do not mention it to me; it would be better for you, because I

would immediately notify the regency or the court."

The servant further testified that thereupon several words were

exchanged, and Tichelaar closed the interview saying:

"Seeing that monsieur does not wish me to reveal my secret to him,

I shall keep it for the present, and shall later disclose it to

others."

My brother has confirmed the deposition, and Tichelaar's testimony

being the only one against my brother, I can not see that there is

room to apprehend aught in this affair. I do not doubt that he will

be soon set free. There is nothing left to regret but the disturbed

condition of the times and the wickedness of our enemies.

For the rest, the capture of the cities situated along the Rhine;

the swiftness of the motions of the armies of Louis XIV; their

invasion of our territory up the Yssel--all this without hardly

meeting any resistance, in fact encouraged by unheard of cowardice,

or even infamous treason, have more and more brought home to me the

truth of what used to be said of old of the Roman

Republic--_Prospera omnes sibi vindicant, adversa uni

imputantur_.[1] That is what I am now experiencing. The people of

Holland blame me for the disasters and calamities of our Republic,

notwithstanding I have never been otherwise than a faithful servant

of the country. For these reasons I decided to resign my office of

Grand Pensionary. The States had the kindness to grant my request,

as you will see from the extract which I forward to you. I have

thought it my duty to inform you of my resignation, in order that

you may not continue to address me on matters that concern the

state, and that you forward all such matters to the Pensionary of

Holland and West Friesland, or to his present substitute.

John De Witt was about finishing this letter to Admiral Ruyter when a

maid servant entered the room and announced to the ex-Grand Pensionary

of Holland that Monsieur Serdan, together with two other persons, asked

to speak with him.

"Let him in!" answered John De Witt. "Never more so than at this moment

was the company of a friend welcome to me."

Monsieur Serdan and his two companions were brought in. One of the

latter was a man of mature age and grey of hair; the other, his son, was

the young and bold mariner who saved the brigantine St. Eloi, on board

of which was Mademoiselle Bertha of Plouernel, and, a singular accident

that she was still ignorant of, both men belonged to that old Gallic

family of Breton extraction of whom Colonel Plouernel made mention in

his manuscript, that Lebrenn family which, successively slave, serf and

vassal since the conquest of Clovis, transmitted its own plebeian annals

to its descendants from generation to generation.

Salaun Lebrenn and his son Nominoe, who followed close upon the heels of

Monsieur Serdan, could neither restrain nor conceal their emotion at the

sight of John De Witt, the great citizen whom they admired and venerated

even more than before, after they learned from Monsieur Serdan a

thousand intimate details concerning the illustrious man.

"My friend," said John De Witt to Serdan after affably responding to the

respectful greetings of the two Frenchmen, "these are, I suppose, your

two countrymen in behalf of whom you asked me to communicate with the

college of the admiralty, in order to obtain a secret order and safe

conduct, in the event of their vessel's being boarded by one of our

cruisers?"

"Yes, my dear John. As French sailors they have nothing to fear from the

royal squadrons. The pass is only to protect them from the cruisers of

Holland. When day before yesterday I handed you the notes concerning

Brittany, confided to me by Monsieur Salaun Lebrenn, the captain of a

French merchant vessel and resident of the port of Vannes, I informed

you under what circumstances I became acquainted with Monsieur Lebrenn

at Nantes, three years ago. Identity of views, religion and hopes bound

us together since then. A frequent exchange of letters drew us still

closer together. Monsieur Lebrenn, better than anyone else, is qualified

to speak upon conditions in Brittany. Both his family and his mercantile

connections enable him to be aware of and to apprise me of the evidences

of discontent in his province, analogous to those that my friend and I

observed when we crossed Languedoc, Dauphiny, the Vivarais, Guyenne and

Normandy. Struck with the significance of the tide of popular discontent

invading the larger part of France, I induced Monsieur Lebrenn to come

to The Hague in order to confer with you, and I placed in your hands his

report of the grave events of which Brittany is just now the theater. I

need not add that you may place perfect reliance upon all he says."

"I doubt not. It agrees at all points with other reports that have

reached me concerning the political situation in France," answered John

De Witt.

And addressing himself to Salaun Lebrenn:

"Yes, monsieur, I have read your report with close and scrupulous

attention. The distressing and often horrible facts in which it abounds

are, I am sure, in no way exaggerated. The acts of pillage, of rapine

and numerous other unheard-of atrocities which the troops of Louis XIV

are at this hour committing in our own provinces, attest but too clearly

the violent and disorderly habits that your armed forces have

contracted at home. In short, monsieur, your report proves to me

incontestably that the popular discontent, the progress of which is so

glaring in Brittany, is to be attributed to the following causes: to the

taxes, the imposts and the levies raised upon their vassals by the

seigneurs and the clergy; to the ill-treatment, the imprisonment and

even the executions mercilessly inflicted upon the vassals, and against

which these have no redress, seeing that a large number of seigneurs are

vested with supreme powers in their own domains;--to the exactions, the

unbridled licence of the seigniorial soldiery, to which the people of

the cities and the country are alike exposed;--to the profound

irritation of the bourgeoisie of such large cities as Rennes and Nantes,

who, whelmed every day with new imposts, find themselves threatened with

imminent ruin;--finally, to the no less profound irritation of the

Breton parliament, which feels itself outraged by the promulgation,

without its sanction, of fiscal edicts which it refuses to register, and

which are so burdensome that poverty, distress and misery weigh down

upon all classes in the province. Such, monsieur, is the succinct

summary of your report, which is supported with facts that are painfully

real. You add--do you not?--that, according to your own observations,

the discontent brought on by the despotism of Louis XIV has reached such

a point that a general uprising is imminent, and may break out at any

moment?"

"Yes, monsieur," answered Salaun Lebrenn; "that is my conviction, which

rests upon a careful study of the people and of affairs."

"Your conclusion seems to me well founded. And yet," observed John De

Witt, "allow me to remind you that at such serious junctures one must

always be on his guard against illusions--illusions that are all the

more excusable, and therefore all the more liable to mislead us, seeing

they are born of generous hopes, of the legitimate desire to put an end

to crying abuses."

"You may be certain, monsieur, my wishes do not carry away my judgment,"

answered Salaun Lebrenn. "The present state of public opinion in

Brittany does offer to our common cause and that of humanity strong

chances of success. But I am far from being blind to many an unfavorable

possibility in the event of the impending uprising. Nevertheless, it has

seemed to me opportune to profit by the state of general discontent,

and, even if we may not succeed in overthrowing, at any rate seek to

check the tyranny which is exhausting the energies of France, is

degrading and oppressing the land, and reaches beyond our own borders,

inflicting painful blows upon your own Republic, our natural ally. The

times are once more proving that, seeing Kings, without consulting their

peoples, declare war upon whoever interferes with their ambition, or

wounds their pride, the people, in their turn, have the right to ally

themselves with those who will aid them to break the yoke. Is not that

your opinion also, monsieur?"

"Yes, indeed," replied John De Witt; "all oppressed peoples have the

right, in the name of eternal justice, to ask for help and support from

a friendly people against tyranny. To revolt against Kings and to look

for foreign support is a legitimate act, provided that the support do

not hide either on the part of those who accord, or those who receive

it, any project hostile to the integrity of the territory, or the

independence, or the honor of the country. It must be in the interest of

the freedom of all."

"Yes; and for that reason eternal shame fastens upon the League!"

exclaimed Serdan. "The Catholic League in France sought for Spanish

support in order to exterminate the Protestants, and dethrone Henry IV,

who, his vices and deplorable defects notwithstanding, at least

represented the French nationality."

"While the League, the Catholic Union, on the contrary, represented the

foreigner, the party of Rome, of Spain and of the Inquisition," added

Salaun Lebrenn. "In its hatred of the Protestants and of the spirit of

liberty, the League aimed at a crushing despotism that was to be

exercised in the interest of its own members. Did they not nurse the

parricidal thought of dismembering France? Did they not scheme to offer

the throne to Philip II, that bigoted monarch whose bloody tyranny

stupefied the world? All honor to your ancestors, Monsieur De Witt! By

dint of their sacred revolt they dealt the first blow to the Spanish

monarchy, and they raised, heavily paying therefor with their own blood,

this Republic whose existence is now threatened by Louis XIV."

"Your observations are just, monsieur," answered John De Witt. "Yes, to

the eternal glory of Protestantism, which is my faith, the Protestants,

having been placed outside the pale of common rights and kept in

constant dread of death, were driven, in the course of the last century

and of this very century also, to ask for help from their coreligionists

of other countries, in order to defend their families, their hearths,

their faith and their threatened lives. But never was their action

stained with any project of aggrandizement at the cost of France! Their

request for help always had for its purpose only the triumph of the

Reformation and the freedom of all! In short, when, oppressed in mind,

when physically trampled upon, when plundered of its property, when

deprived of its rights, when persecuted in its faith, a people invokes

against its tyrant the help of a friendly and disinterested nation, it

is not, then, upon the foreigner that it calls but upon its own brothers

in the human family."

"My son," said Salaun Lebrenn to Nominoe, "you are still young; we live

in evil days; you will no doubt take a part in struggles that are as

grievous as any that our ancestors experienced in past ages, during

which they were alternately vanquishers and vanquished. Never forget the

noble sentiments you have just heard uttered by one of the greatest

citizens who can do honor to a republican people. Kings are outside of

the pale of the law, outside of common rights!"

"Father," answered Nominoe in a moved and serious voice, "the sentiments

I have just heard will forever remain graven in my memory, and likewise

will the memory of the illustrious man that I to-day have the honor of

seeing. I pledge undying hatred to tyranny and royalty."

And, in response to what appeared to him a movement of embarrassment on

the part of John De Witt at the crudity of a praise that seemed

exaggerated, the young mariner added:

"Oh, monsieur! Your mind is too lofty, your knowledge of men too sound

to mistake for base flattery the sincere enthusiasm that one feels at my

age for genius and virtue. If you only knew with what avidity I have

listened to our friend, Monsieur Serdan, when he told us of the

simplicity of your life, which, for so many years, has been consecrated

to the service of the Republic, to the defense of its rights, to the

promotion of its power, and to the solidification of its conquered

freedom! If you only knew how sweet, how wholesome to the soul is the

religious adoration one entertains for great and upright men! how

fruitful such admiration is of generous aspirations and brave

resolutions! how it redoubles in one the love of justice and the horror

for iniquity! Oh, Monsieur De Witt, if my admiration wounds your

modesty, allow me at least to express to you my gratitude for the noble

thoughts that your words and your presence inspire me with, for the good

that you have done to me!" Nominoe uttered these words in a voice

tremulous with emotion, and eyes glistening with tears.

"God forfend, young man, that I should question your sincerity,"

answered John De Witt touched by the language of Nominoe. "Yes," he

proceeded, extending his hand to the young sailor, "yes, you are

right--admiration, if not for men, then at least for the principles that

they represent, is wholesome and fruitful of good! You have expressed

that noble sentiment in such terms that I can not but congratulate your

father in having such a son. Preserve your vigorous hatred for all

tyrants."

Yielding to an involuntary impulse of enthusiasm, instead of clasping

the hand that John De Witt offered him, Nominoe bowed down and, with a

motion of almost filial veneration, approached De Witt's hand to his

lips. The act was so natural and so touching that his father, Monsieur

Serdan and John De Witt felt solemnly impressed.

His eyes moist with tears and filled with ineffable happiness, Salaun

Lebrenn said to the ex-Pensionary of Holland: "Yes, monsieur, I am a

happy father."

"And now, my friend," resumed Monsieur Serdan addressing John De Witt,

"if you entertained any doubt upon the reliableness of the information

transmitted to you by Monsieur Lebrenn concerning the popular sentiment

in Brittany, the lofty sentiments of my worthy friend and his son should

cause you, I hope, to place full confidence in them."

"Their straightforwardness and nobility of character do, indeed, deserve

my full confidence," answered John De Witt. "I shall listen with

interest to any further information that your friends may have

concerning the political affairs of your country."

"Well, monsieur, this is the actual state of things in Brittany: A

strong portion of the bourgeoisie of Rennes and Nantes, belonging to

the Reformed religion, favors a federative Republic, agreeable to the

Protestant traditions of the last century. The majority of the members

of the provincial parliament, of the officeholders, and even a portion

of the bourgeoisie, although they execrate Louis XIV, do nevertheless

hold to the monarchic form of government, but desire to subordinate the

same to the States General, the sovereignty of which was proclaimed in

the Fourteenth Century by Etienne Marcel. This element desires to reduce

the throne to the functions of an executive agent of the national

assemblies. The nobility and seigneurs are royalists, but they are not

numerous. As to the urban population, you know, monsieur, in what a

state of subjection and of calculated ignorance they are held. Weighed

down with taxes, they would rebel against misery and tax collectors

sooner than against the King, or the monarchy. The rustic population,

which consists mainly of vassals and is exploited and oppressed by the

clergy, the seigneurs, the tax collectors and the armed forces quartered

upon them, would also, driven to extremities by misery, revolt against

their sufferings, against the seigneurs, against the priests, against

the tax collectors and against the soldiers, but would remain no less

indifferent to the form of government than the city folks. You see,

accordingly, Monsieur De Witt, that I yield to no illusions. As certain

as I am of an imminent uprising in Brittany, am I also of its

consequences. No doubt, the republican form of government, to which your

provinces owe so much of their power, their prosperity, and greatness,

is, in my opinion, the ideal government; but I entertain no hopes of

seeing the same prevail in my country for the present. In fine, I shall

go so far as to say, it is possible, it is even probable that, in case

the insurrection triumph, and that Brittany reconquer, arms in hand, her

freedom and ancient franchises, the victory will be thwarted the very

next day, and she will lose again almost all the fruits of her triumph,

owing to the lack of organization and of oneness of view, of abnegation,

or of intelligence on the part of the victors themselves. This

notwithstanding, the insurrection in Brittany will have favorable

consequences to progress. The King, the nobility and the clergy,

frightened by the violence of the popular movement, will feel

constrained, out of fear of new reprisals, to lighten the yoke that

to-day they cause to bear heavily upon our people in general. Such

relief would be a modest conquest, but it will be sure. Experience will

justify my words. My conviction upon this head is so firm, that neither

I nor my son will hesitate to take part in a struggle in which he and I

will probably be the first victims, as were so many of our ancestors,

who embarked in similar undertakings. But what does that matter? A step

will have been taken towards the day of ultimate deliverance. This is

the reason, Monsieur De Witt, that I have come to you, in the name of

the discontented elements of Brittany, to request the moral and

financial support of the Republic of the United Provinces, in order to

combat the execrable Louis XIV, who is both your enemy and ours."

"My friend," replied John De Witt after listening attentively to Salaun

Lebrenn's presentation, "last year, at about this time, our friend

Serdan returned from a journey through France. Before him, Monsieur Roux

Marcilly, a Huguenot captain, an active and observing man, who has many

friends among the independent members of the British House of Commons

opposed to the French alliance, noticed, just as our friend did, the

sprouting germs of the uprising that is to-day imminent. Both asked me

at the time whether, in case of an outbreak, it would receive the

support of the Republic."

"You answered me in the negative," interrupted Monsieur Serdan, "on the

ground, as you expressed it, that the Republic was bound to Louis XIV by

a treaty concluded at a time when there was nothing to indicate that

that prince would become an oppressor. I foretold you that the alliance

would be observed by you only, but would be trampled under foot by Louis

XIV. Have not events confirmed my foresight?"

"It is true--but I would have considered it criminal to forestall one

act of treason by another. The face of things is changed to-day. In

violation of his oath of renunciation, taken at the time of his marriage

with the Infanta of Spain, Louis XIV has invaded Flanders without cause,

broken the alliance by declaring war upon us without the shadow of even

a pretext, and suborned England to his aid. The Republic finds itself

now legitimately entitled to take up arms, and it thereby does an act

that is at once generous and politic, by affording help to the oppressed

people of France. By these means dangerous complications can be

conjured up against Louis XIV within his own kingdom, and furthermore,

we would be aiding the French people in their effort to break his yoke,

at least to render it less galling. I therefore give you my formal

promise to induce my friends in the Assembly of the States to lend the

moral and material aid of the Republic to the people of France. If they

rise against Louis XIV, I promise you arms and funds."

"Oh! father," cried Nominoe with the enthusiastic ardor and presumptuous

confidence of his age; "we shall deal the death blow to despotism! The

Republic is with us! Commune and Federation!"

Without sharing his son's confidence of success Salaun Lebrenn said to

John De Witt solemnly: "In the name of so many oppressed people, who

will see, if not the finish, at least a relief of their sufferings, a

blessing upon you, monsieur! Once more you show yourself faithful to the

principle that has guided your whole life. Perhaps our success may turn

out greater than I expect, if the Republic gives us a helping hand. Its

moral and material support, at this season, may now be considered

certain. Your powerful influence as Grand Pensionary of Holland will be

determining and decisive in the Assembly of the States."

"Pardon me, monsieur, if I interrupt you. I am no longer the Grand

Pensionary of Holland."

Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and Nominoe looked at one another in

astonishment. For a moment they stood dumbfounded. Serdan was the first

to recover his speech: "What, my friend! Is what you say possible? Did

you resign your high functions?"

"Just as you came in with your two friends I was finishing this letter

to Admiral Ruyter," said John De Witt pointing to the letter on the

table. "I informed the admiral of my resignation from the office of

Grand Pensionary of Holland. Nevertheless, the interview I was to have

with you and your friends was of such importance that, although I no

longer filled my former office, I thought it well to hear you in order

that, should it seem wise to me, I could assure you of my co-operation

as a member of the Assembly, where I have numerous friends. You may rely

upon my support."

"Oh! monsieur," said Salaun Lebrenn sadly; "sad presentiments assail me;

your withdrawal will prove fatal to the cause of freedom. Your

resignation is a public disaster."

"But what is the reason for your resignation?" asked Serdan. "What,

John! The state is in danger!--and at such a moment you resign the high

office with which you were clad?"

"My friend, so far from serving the Republic, my activity at the present

juncture would be fatal to it. Be frank," John De Witt proceeded after a

pause; "you have been back in The Hague only a few days; nevertheless,

the change in the public mind regarding myself can not have escaped your

quick eye. Answer me frankly. What is the opinion entertained about me

to-day by the people?"

"Well--I must admit it! Your popularity, once unbounded, has been

somewhat impaired--but it is still strong."

"You deceive yourself, my friend; my popularity is completely destroyed.

A month ago, when divine providence snatched me from almost certain

death, those who a short time before would have cursed my assassins, saw

in the crime nothing but a providential punishment. They called me

traitor--and said the hand of God smote me! These charges of treason

unchained public hatred against my brother and myself. A short while ago

my father's house was torn down by a furious mob at Dortrecht; and my

brother--my brother!--one of the most virtuous citizens of the Republic,

is at this hour held in confinement, imprisoned as an assassin, upon the

mere word of a wretch who is smarting under the brand of infamy. I

nevertheless hope that, despite the inveterate hatred of our enemies, my

brother's innocence will baffle the infamous calumny."

John De Witt's confidence in the happy issue of the process instituted

against his brother saddened Serdan's heart. It reminded him of the

alarm Monsieur Tilly expressed for the life of Cornelius De Witt. Serdan

was still hopeful, and preferred not to disturb the peace of mind of the

ex-Grand Pensionary of Holland with the latest tidings. The painful

state of agitation into which the mind of Nominoe was thrown increased

by the second. He suddenly turned his moist eyes to his father and said:

"The De Witt brothers accused of treason to the Republic! Good God, it

is enough to make one despair of humanity! Oh, blind people! Or are you

stupid and cruel? Are you ever to be a foe to your most generous

defenders? Will you ever allow them to be dragged to the scaffold?"

"My son, we must never despair of humanity. The people must never be

flattered. To do so is to debase it, and to debase oneself. Its errors

must be condemned but excused--when they are excusable," put in John De

Witt addressing Nominoe with affectionate reproach. "The people believes

me a traitor. I deplore, I pity its blindness more than I condemn it. It

is to be excused--on account of its ignorance."

Nominoe, his father and Serdan contemplated John De Witt in

astonishment. The young mariner resumed:

"What, monsieur!--is the people to be excused when it charges you with

treason? Should it not judge you by your acts?"

"And if my acts seem to-day to turn against me overwhelmingly, would not

that explain the people's error with regard to me?"

And John De Witt, responding to a questioning look from Nominoe, added:

"Listen, my son, the lesson is grave and instructive--listen. My

friends, my brother and myself (we are given the name of the 'French

party') now about ten years ago, in 1662, used all our influence with

the Assembly of the States to bind the Republic in a close alliance with

France, our natural ally, as we considered her. Louis XIV was then quite

young; if he exhibited certain foibles of youth, I considered him gifted

with their reciprocal virtues--honesty, generosity, faithfulness to his

pledged word. The King pledged himself to assist the Republic in the

event of a war with England, and to respect the territory of Spanish

Flanders, in accord with the act of renunciation of the treaty of the

Pyrenees. But what happened? The increasing prosperity of our commerce,

which extends from one end of the world to the other, our maritime

preponderance and our wealth awakened the jealousy and cupidity of our

neighbors; besides, the very existence of our Republic, ever more and

more flourishing, seemed to Louis XIV a dangerous example to his own

people. Accordingly, winning England to his side with bribes, he drove

her to declare war against us, and, so far from keeping faith with us,

and assisting us with his fleets, he not only did not furnish us a

single ship--no, I err, he did send us one, a fire ship--but he left us

isolated to struggle with England single-handed, and capped the climax

by finally dropping his mask, and also declaring war upon us, in concert

with England."

Perceiving the indignation marked upon Nominoe's face, John De Witt

added:

"I told you a minute ago, the people was wrong to believe me guilty of

treachery, but the error is pardonable. My acts seem to bear witness

against me. When the Republic saw me, my brother and my friends exert

all our power to induce it to ally itself with Louis XIV, offering

ourselves as a guarantee of the prince's good faith in his promises, the

Republic placed confidence in us, and the alliance was concluded.

To-day, we but suffer the consequences of the treason of Louis XIV."

John De Witt paused for a moment and then proceeded:

"But however great the iniquity of which I am a victim, do not pity me.

My conscience is clear; I know I have lived the life of an honorable man

and a good citizen. Should God call me to Him to-morrow, I shall go,

serenely, and await his judgment. That, my son, is the moral of the

lesson."

As John De Witt was uttering these last words, listened to devoutly by

Nominoe, Monsieur Tilly entered precipitately into the apartment.

CHAPTER VI.

CORNELIUS DE WITT.

Monsieur Tilly, dressed in full uniform, wore the distinctive signs of

his rank--a high collar and a scarf. He was pale, and so visibly

disturbed that, struck by his appearance, John De Witt asked with alarm:

"My friend--you must be the bearer of tidings that portend some public

calamity?"

"A great calamity!" answered Monsieur Tilly with a faltering voice. "An

irreparable calamity!"

"What has happened?" inquired John De Witt. "What are the frightful

tidings that you bring me?" And looking towards Salaun Lebrenn and his

son he added: "These friends are countrymen of Monsieur Serdan's. You

may speak freely before them."

"My friend," said Monsieur Tilly, hardly able to control his emotions,

"you must leave The Hague this very day--you must depart within an hour,

if possible. You must flee!"

"Flee!" cried John De Witt astounded. "Flee like a criminal! And why

should I leave The Hague?"

"You must leave! Go quickly, I implore you, in the name of your wife and

daughters. Depart!"

"Tilly," replied John De Witt. "I am not devoid of courage. I should at

least know the cause of your alarm!"

"Yes; you have a strong soul; yes, you sustain the blows of adversity

with the serenity of an upright man--but however strong your soul, it is

at the same time susceptible of great tenderness for the objects of your

affection--you feel the smart of the blows that strike them--and--"

"My brother!" cried John De Witt turning pale and breaking in upon

Monsieur Tilly. "It is about my brother!"

"Ask me no more questions--embrace your wife and daughters--and leave

The Hague on the spot--you must not delay an instant!"

"But my brother--my dear and good brother--what has befallen him?"

"In God's name, spend no time with questions--depart--a few minutes more

and it will be too late."

A tremor ran over John De Witt's frame. He wiped the perspiration from

his forehead, and overpowering his emotion, bowed to Salaun Lebrenn and

his son, saying to them in a firm voice: "You will have to excuse me, my

friends, if I leave you. I can not remain any longer in this painful

uncertainty regarding my brother's fate. I shall hurry to the castle,

where he is confined."

"John!" broke in Monsieur Tilly, throwing himself in the way of the

Grand Pensionary of Holland. "You shall not go there! By God! You shall

not go to the castle--I shall tell you all--"

"They have killed him!" cried John De Witt in heartrending accents.

"Unhappy me, they have killed him!"

"No," replied Monsieur Tilly in despair; "no, I assure you, Cornelius is

not dead!"

This assurance allayed the poignancy of John De Witt's anxiety. But

still staggering under the blow of his terrible apprehension, he felt

his knees give way under him, and he leaned on the edge of the table,

unable to articulate a word. Salaun Lebrenn and his son stood in

consternation, dreading some great misfortune, and looked at Monsieur

Tilly with uneasy curiosity, while Serdan said to him in a low voice:

"Alas! A moment ago John De Witt felt perfectly at ease on the score of

the charge against his brother. I dared not mention to him the fears

that you expressed to me this morning."

Serdan broke off as he heard John De Witt say to Tilly in a calm voice:

"Pardon my weakness, my friend. There are unexpected blows that take one

by surprise, and floor him. Thanks to God, my brother still lives.

Speak, I listen."

"As late as this morning I was as certain as yourself of the

worthlessness of the charges preferred against Cornelius. I was in that

frame of mind until I met an officer of the bourgeois militia that

guards the prison, and who is of our party. From him I learned of the

wild popular exasperation against yourself, your brother and the French

party, who are considered accomplices in the ferocities committed by the

troops of Louis XIV, and that this exasperation was assuming such a

violent aspect that the tribunal, before which Cornelius was to be tried

and which consists of bitter Orangemen, decided, with a view of

satisfying the blind popular rage,--decided," repeated Monsieur Tilly

with a shudder, "to submit your brother to the torture, and compel him

to confess his crime. The atrocious project has been carried out!"

"Good God!" cried John De Witt, raising his hands and eyes heavenward.

"What frightful tidings!"

Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and his son could not restrain a cry of

indignation and horror.

"But perhaps my brother is expiring from the consequences of the

torture!" exclaimed John De Witt in despair.

"Notwithstanding the sufferings he has undergone, your brother's life is

safe," answered Tilly. "I pledge you my word."

"The infamous wretches! To believe that the torture could wrest from a

De Witt the admission of a crime which he is guiltless of!" exclaimed

John De Witt in a smothered voice. "I am certain my brother underwent

the ordeal of the torture with heroic serenity. Proceed, my friend, I

feel strong enough to listen."

"I have my information direct from the court registrar who witnessed the

horrible scene," continued Tilly. "Cornelius was tied down upon a table.

His hands were placed by the executioner between two iron plates, held

together by screws, the slightest turn downward of which would break the

patient's bones."

"Oh!" cried Serdan, horrified. "These are shocking details!"

"Tilly," said John De Witt in a firm voice, "conceal nothing from me. I

want to know everything. Oh, my brother! Poor, dear victim!"

"During the preparation for the torture, the face of Cornelius was pale

and impassive. One of the judges approached him: 'Are you ready to make

a confession?' he asked your brother. 'I have nothing to confess,' was

his answer. 'Then you persist in denying that you plotted to assassinate

the Prince of Orange?' 'Monsieur,' replied Cornelius, 'had I desired to

assassinate the Prince of Orange, I would not have employed another's

arm.' 'Prisoner,' rejoined the judge, 'torture may compel you to confess

what you now refuse to admit.' 'Monsieur, you will cut me to pieces

before you can make me confess an act that I never even thought of.'

'Then you deny?' 'I deny.' Upon a sign from the judge, the executioner

gave the screws a turn; the plates drew closer together, and crushed

Cornelius's hands. His suffering was cruel, yet he remained silent,

impassive. Suddenly a wild clamor from the mob that was gathered at the

foot of the tower, reached your brother's ears. 'Death to the French

party!' 'Death to the accomplices of Louis XIV!' 'Death to De Witt!'

Upon hearing these cries, the registrar informed me, your brother raised

his head and turned his inspired eyes to the ceiling of the prison; his

features were transfigured; they were serenely resplendent; a divine

smile flitted over his lips; his moral courage dominated the agonies of

the body; and, as the mob without redoubled its cries for his death,

Cornelius recited in a powerful ringing voice this strophe from Horace:

"'_Neither the unjust clamor of the people, nor the angry frown of a

tyrant, is able to dethrone the mind of a man upright and true to his

cause._'"[2]

"Oh! my noble brother!" cried John De Witt breaking the silence of

admiration that followed the narrative of Monsieur Tilly. "Often did you

make the remark--_the dark iniquity of the guilty but causes the virtue

of the just to shine forth with all the greater luster!_"

"Yes!" continued Monsieur Tilly. "And at this very moment that beautiful

sentiment is approved true. The executioners and judges were seized with

respect and admiration for the grandeur of soul of Cornelius De Witt,

and they gazed upon one another in a sort of stupor, as if the absurdity

of the hateful process had broken its way into their vision. The judges

conferred. The ignominy of submitting one of the greatest citizens of

the Republic, one of the victors of Chatham and Solway, to the torture,

and upon no stronger grounds than the word of a noted wretch, smote

their consciences. Even paler than the patient himself, the registrar

informed me, the judges ordered the torture to cease, and, addressing

Cornelius in a faltering voice said to him: 'So, then, monsieur, you

insist upon making no confession?' 'Save me and yourselves the trouble

of such questions,' was Cornelius's answer; 'you have the power to

proceed with the torture; my body belongs to you.' Recoiling before the

thought of repeating the barbarous act, the judges ordered the

executioners to untie their victim. Your brother was taken back to his

prison, where the registrar of the States announced to him a few minutes

later the decree that was pronounced upon him. It is as follows:

"'The court of Holland, having considered and examined the documents,

submitted to it by the attorney general of the court, against and in

accusation of Master Cornelius De Witt, former burgomaster of Dortrecht

and ruart of the district of Putten, at present a prisoner of the said

court, as well as examined him, his confrontations, and all that was

said by himself, declares the prisoner forfeit of all his offices and

dignities, banishes him from the provinces of Holland, never to return

again under pain of still severer punishment, and sentences him to pay

the costs of the trial.'"

"But this very decree proves the innocence of Cornelius De Witt," cried

Salaun Lebrenn. "Devoted Orangemen though the judges are, they have

recoiled before their own iniquity. They did not even dare to mention

the alleged crime of the prisoner. If the crime were mentioned, the

death penalty would be the necessary punishment. Oh, the miserable, the

infamous fellows!"

"You are correct," replied Monsieur Tilly. "After hearing his sentence

read, Cornelius De Witt said to the registrar: 'Monsieur, if I am an

assassin I deserve death; if I am innocent I should be set free, and my

accuser punished. I appeal from this sentence to the Supreme Council.'

'If so, monsieur,' said the registrar, 'be kind enough to formulate

your objection at the foot of the decree and to sign the same.'

Cornelius De Witt cast a bitter smile upon the registrar, and raising

his two hands mutilated by the torture and bandaged in blood-stained

wrappages: 'I can not write, monsieur, I shall dictate to you my

objections to the sentence.' So saying, Cornelius formulated his

objection in the following terms: 'In the face of God and of man, I must

be pronounced an assassin or innocent: death or freedom.'"

"Oh!" cried John De Witt. "I shall devote all the power left to me, all

my life, to seek and obtain the rehabilitation of my brother! I shall

not falter in the task."

"Do you now understand," asked Tilly, "why I consider that you would be

lost, without profit to your brother, if you were now to be seen at the

prison? The agents of the Prince of Orange quickly spread among the mob

the news of Cornelius's banishment, and stirred up the popular rage at

his not having been put to death. These moves have raised the popular

exasperation to a still higher pitch, and incited the mob's cravings for

vengeance. The crowd has threatened to tear down the gates of the prison

in order to take your brother and do him to death. The registrar having

hastened to notify me of these events, I ordered The Hague cavalry to

the spot. It is now drawn up before the castle. Our horsemen are not

Orangemen, as you know; the prison will not be broken in so long as they

are allowed to remain on guard. You see, you may feel at ease, for the

present, on the fate of Cornelius. I conjure you, my friend, renounce

the purpose of proceeding to the prison. You are known by the whole

city. To cross its streets at this moment of ferment, is uselessly to

challenge the greatest risk. Think of your own dear family."

"John," added Serdan, "we join Tilly in urging you to flee as soon as

possible. Who knows but that your own house may be invaded at one moment

or another by that senselessly furious mob, as your father's house was

invaded in Dortrecht!"

"Preserve yourself for your brother's sake, Monsieur De Witt," put in

Salaun Lebrenn. "Leave The Hague."

"Live for this people which is more blind than it is ungrateful. Maybe

the day will come when it will implore you to save the Republic!" said

Nominoe with tears in his eyes, as he saw John De Witt receive the

urgings of his friends with a silent impatience that betrayed his inner

resolution to go to his brother.

Monsieur Tilly made a last effort, crying: "Is it your purpose to risk

your own life, as well as that of Cornelius, by proceeding to the

prison?" And answering an impatient wafture of John De Witt's hand, he

added: "It is horrible, but it is a fact--the first blood that a mob

sheds throws it into a savage intoxication. So far from being allayed by

your death, the hatred of those furious men will then become so

unbridled that it will be impossible any longer to restrain them. They

will then force the prison gates and slaughter your brother!"

"Enough! Enough, my friend!" said John De Witt with a shudder, and

almost overcome by the insistence of his friends. He seemed to hesitate

in his first determination, when he saw Madam De Witt step into the

apartment.

"My friend," said she to her husband handing him a note that she held in

her hand, "one of the grenadiers of the prison has just brought you this

letter from our brother Cornelius. It is urgent, says the man. He is

waiting for your answer. He says there is considerable commotion in The

Hague, and that, should you wish to proceed to the castle, he offers to

lead you through the closed Borlek Alley, and thence to Vivier Alley, of

which he has the key. But he says you must not delay."

John De Witt hastened to take the note, ran his eyes over it, and cried:

"My brother writes to me that he wishes to see me immediately."

"It is a trap!" exclaimed Serdan. "You seem to forget that Cornelius is

not in a condition to write! Crime and treachery!"

"Why should he not be in a condition to write?" asked Madam De Witt,

ignorant of the circumstance that her brother-in-law's hands were

crushed.

An embarrassing silence followed upon Madam De Witt's question, a

silence which Monsieur Tilly broke:

"Madam, your brother is suffering with an abscess on his thumb. It would

be difficult for him to hold a pen."

"Mary, my cloak, my sword, my gloves; quick, I pray you," said John De

Witt to his wife.

Madam De Witt left in quest of the articles demanded by her husband. No

sooner had she withdrawn than Tilly, Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and his son

cried in alarm: "Give up the thought! Do not go to the castle! You will

be marching to your death!"

"The letter is a forgery!" added Serdan. "They are laying a snare for

you, and the jailer is in the plot!"

"First of all, hear what Cornelius writes to me," said John De Witt to

his friends, and he read:

"Dear brother, I am obliged to help myself with a stranger's hand

to write to you. I urge you earnestly, come to me to the castle

without delay. Your presence is indispensable. One of the jailers

is devoted to me. He will lead you by a circuitous route, where you

are not likely to meet anyone. Come, come."

"Treachery!" repeated Serdan. "I tell you once more, their purpose is to

lead you into a trap, an ambush!"

"Cornelius has heard from his prison the clamor of the people for his

life, and for yours," added Monsieur Tilly. "There is even fear that the

maddened mob may succeed in breaking into the prison, and do you suppose

that your brother would call you to his side at such a moment? No, no!

There is treachery in all this!"

"But suppose this letter was truly dictated by my brother!" cried John

De Witt, interrupting Tilly. "Suppose that, finding himself about to die

as the result of his torture, he wishes to die in my arms! Suppose he

awaits my presence as a supreme consolation! Should I hesitate before a

sacred duty? No, never!"

As John De Witt was uttering these last words Madam De Witt re-entered

accompanied by her two daughters, Agnes and Mary, one thirteen, the

other fifteen years of age. They brought their father's cloak and sword.

Their candid and smiling faces presented so painful a contrast to the

dangers that threatened their father, that the witnesses of the scene

felt their hearts wrung.

"Father," said Mary, handing John De Witt his cloak, and helping him to

put it on, "since you are going to see our dear uncle in that horrid

prison, that I am sure he will soon be free to leave, tell him for me

that, although he was away from us, we always had him in mind."

"But, better still, father," added Agnes gaily, giving her father his

sword, "bring us our dear uncle back soon. And while we wait for his

return give him this kiss for me--"

"And this one from me," said Mary, embracing and kissing her father.

With a superhuman effort John De Witt controlled and concealed his

afflicted thoughts, tenderly answered the caresses of his daughters by

covering their young foreheads with kisses, and addressing his wife,

said: "Adieu, my faithful friend; brave companion in evil days, adieu! I

hope shortly to bring you better tidings of my brother," and he left

abruptly, followed by Monsieur Tilly, Salaun Lebrenn, his son and

Monsieur Serdan.

"The die is cast!" said Tilly to his friends in a low voice while John

De Witt descended the stairs of his house. "Follow him! Guard him! My

horse is waiting for me near by; I shall rejoin my company. We shall

defend the prison with all our might."

"Rely upon us," answered Serdan; "all that three resolute men can do

shall be done by us. May we be able to save John De Witt, and, with him,

the Republic."

CHAPTER VII.

MOB-VERDICT.

In the near vicinity of the palace, where the States General of the

Republic of the Seven Provinces held their sessions, rose a vast edifice

blackened by years and pierced with narrow, iron-barred windows. This

ancient castle now did the services of a place of detention. Its

principal facade, pierced with an ogive gate that was led up to by a few

stairs, was separated from Buytenhoff Square by a closed iron-barred

gate, before which, on this particular day, stood drawn up the cavalry

troop of Monsieur Tilly. Up to that moment the troopers had, thanks to

their coolness and the closeness of their ranks, prevented the mob that

crowded the square from forcing the iron gate of the prison in which

Cornelius De Witt lay. The tumultuous gathering that at first had been

emitting furious howls and threats of death against the French party,

now crowded in silence around several citizens of The Hague who, mounted

upon posts, or standing upon the stairs, or upon carts, read aloud and

commented on to the gaping mob letters recently received from the

provinces that the armies of Louis XIV had invaded. Among the more fiery

of the orators a rich goldsmith of The Hague was prominent. His name

was Henry Weroeff, who until recently was one of the most active members

of the French party. Accordingly, when he jumped upon an unhitched wagon

and announced that he wanted to speak, his voice was drowned under a

volley of hoots. Weroeff held a letter in his hand, and motioned for

silence while he shouted:

"My friends, deceived and misled like so many others, I belonged up to

now to the French party--but I have come to apologize for my error, and

to declare in the face of heaven and of man that the brothers De Witt,

the heads of the party, deserve public execration. Either as

accomplices, or the dupes of Louis XIV, they are responsible for the

horrible deeds that the armies of that King are now committing in our

provinces. Listen to this letter, which I received this morning from a

relative who lives in Bodegrave:

"My dear friend, I write to you in haste. I owe my life to a

miraculous accident. Our two burgs of Swamerdam and Bodegrave, each

consisting of over six hundred houses, have just been reduced to

ashes by the army of the King of France. Only one house is left

standing--by the merest accident. The soldiers were especially bent

upon destroying the Protestant churches. Not one escaped. The

school houses and the City Hall, where the court met, were set on

fire. In order to carry out their detestable work, the soldiers

furnished themselves in Utrecht with torches of readily combustible

material. This is a sight that I saw--a father, mother and children

were locked up in their house, and then the place was forthwith set

on fire. Those who sought to escape the flames were massacred by

the soldiers and transfixed with pikes--"[3]

An explosion of furious yells, born of the indignation aroused by

Weroeff's letter, interrupted him at this point. A butcher of herculean

stature, with red hair and beard, blood-shot eyes, and livid with rage,

rushed forward, and jumping upon the cart from which the goldsmith was

speaking, cried out in a stentorian voice that rang above the din: "The

letter tells the truth! My sister lived in Swamerdam. Her two children

were burnt to death in her house. She herself was violated--and then

murdered by the royal soldiers!"

The infuriate man then drew a long knife from his belt, and brandishing

it, cried:

"Massacre and death! In default of the King of France himself, I shall

cut the throats of his good friends in Holland!"

"Death to the De Witts!" "Death to the accomplices of Louis XIV!" echoed

the mob, whose exasperation rose to fever heat. "Death to the traitors!"

"Upon them the blood that has flowed!"

Silence being restored by degrees, the goldsmith proceeded to read:

"Yesterday, when, upon the departure of the enemy, we returned to

our burgs, and removed the ashes of our homes, we found everywhere

charred bodies of men, women and children, the women often holding

the lifeless and partially burnt corpses of their infants in their

own charred stumps. Acts of unheard-of ferocity were committed in

cold blood by the soldiery of Louis XIV. A blind and crippled old

woman, the object of our people's compassion, was killed before the

eyes of her four children, and then thrown, together with them,

into the flames. A number of little children were found horribly

mutilated. The soldiers took a cruel delight in cutting off their

limbs; others would throw them up in the air and receive them on

the points of their bayonets!"

"Little children! Poor little children! Massacre and death! These

atrocities must be revenged!" cried the butcher, whose voice broke the

first silence caused by the stupor and consternation produced by

Weroeff's reading. The butcher's cries were immediately followed by a

volley of imprecations that it is impossible to reproduce. "Death and

extermination!"

"Listen!" said Weroeff. "There is worse yet:

"Girls were violated before the eyes of their mothers, wives before

the eyes of their husbands. The only act of charity on the part of

the soldiers was to spare the victims of their brutalities the

shame of surviving their dishonor--they drowned them in the canal,

or murdered them on the spot--"

At these words, which reminded him of his sister's fate, the butcher,

instead of breaking forth anew with violent imprecations, covered his

face in both his hands and began to weep. The sight of this rough and

rude man's tender sorrow produced a deep impression upon the crowd. The

frightful ferment of a revengeful, inexorable and blind hatred caused

even the coldest hearts to boil with indignation. The goldsmith finished

his letter amid a mass of humanity that was panting for revenge, and

impatient to slake its ire upon the partisans of the French:

"Greed, besides cruelty, animated both the French captain and his

soldiers. They hanged men by the feet in the chimneys of their own

houses, and lighted a fire under them in order that, suffocated and

singed by the clouds of smoke that rose upward and the flames that

licked their faces, they be driven to disclose where they had

hidden their money and valuables. Often the victims possessed none

of these, and they perished, the prey to barbarous greed. Other

soldiers stripped the last shred of clothing from the women and

girls whom they outraged, and drove them naked into the fields

where they were left to die of hunger and cold. One officer (in

justice to him be it said) finding two young ladies of the upper

class in this condition, took pity upon them, gave them his cloak

and some linen that he had with him, and, before returning to his

post, recommended the unfortunate girls to the care of another

officer. The latter, however, violated both the girls, and

thereupon turned them over to his soldiers, who, after subjecting

them to further and extreme outrage, mutilated them frightfully.[4]

Their shapeless corpses were found day before yesterday near the

dike that leads from Bodegrave to Woerden.

"From Nymwegen I learn that one of those butchers, who do not

deserve the name of soldiers, and who was wicked enough to cut off

the breasts of a lying-in mother and to sprinkle gunpowder upon her

wounds, died yesterday in the agonies of a frightful delirium,

caused by remorse for his crime. He believed he saw the distracted

woman pursuing him, and heard her cries of pain. A boatman, the

brother of my father's tenant farmer, was nailed by both his hands

to the mainmast of his barge, while, under the very eyes of the

poor fellow, the soldiers indulged their depravity upon his

daughter. Not even the dead are respected. Two funerals were

stopped on the way to the graveyard, the corpses were stripped of

their shrouds by the soldiers of Louis XIV, and then thrown into

the canal."

The recital of such sacrilegious profanation--doubly abominable in the

eyes of a Protestant people, who religiously guard their dead--caused

the popular fury to boil over. It wanted instant victims to slake its

thirst for revenge and for reprisals. Such victims were at hand--the

brothers De Witt and the other chiefs of the French party, considered

either the dupes or the accomplices of Louis XIV, as the mob declared

with pitiless logic. The popular rage reached its highest pitch. An

ear-rending cry went up from all throats--"Death to De Witt! To the

prison! To the prison!"

By a spontaneous movement the whole mass of enraged humanity rolled

against the prison, the approaches to which Tilly and his troopers had

up to that moment managed to keep clear. So spontaneous was the rush

against the prison, and so resolutely was it executed, that Tilly's

horsemen, finding themselves assailed by a shower of stones, were

constrained in self-defense to draw their sabers. They were on the point

of falling upon their assailants when, with drums beating and amid the

glad acclaims of the multitude, an infantry company of The Hague

militia, known by the name of the "Blue Flag," and consisting

exclusively of Orangemen, debouched upon the square. The captain of

this militia corps informed Monsieur Tilly that, in order to avoid an

effusion of blood in a conflict with the populace, the Council of State

had ordered the company of the Blue Flag to mount guard at the castle,

and relieve the cavalry posted there. Monsieur Tilly had no choice but

to obey and yield the place to his substitutes, although he had no doubt

that the prison would now be speedily invaded by the delirious mob. The

cavalry, its retreat covered by the infantry corps, withdrew from the

square amidst the hootings, the vociferations and even the threats of

the mob which now had reached a pitch of delirious paroxysm.

"After De Witt, to the others, and Tilly shall have his turn. We know

where he lives!" yelled a bitter Orangeman. "He has taken a lot of

French people into his house. Some of them are grand dames! I saw them

yesterday on the balcony."

"Massacre and death! May lightning strike me if I do not take revenge

for my sister upon those French women!" bellowed the butcher. "But

forward, now! First bleed the De Witts. The prison is ours!"

The butcher's threats, directly alluding to Mademoiselle Plouernel and

her aunt, were heard by Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and his son, who, having

returned to the square, and being driven by the current of the mass,

found themselves pushed in the direction of the prison. Vainly had they

sought to keep their promise to Monsieur Tilly of protecting the life of

John De Witt. When the venerable man left his house under the guidance

of the jail grenadier, Serdan and his friends requested him to allow

them to escort him. He consented. Together they crossed several narrow

and quiet streets and presently an almost deserted lane. When, at the

end of the same, they arrived before a gate that barred further passage

and opened upon a corridor leading into the castle, the grenadier

declared to the companions of John De Witt that they could go no

further, his orders being to allow admission only to the Grand

Pensionary of Holland. John De Witt urged his friends to withdraw,

clasped their hands, and entered alone, the door being unlocked, then

closed and re-locked after him by the grenadier who was furnished with a

key. John De Witt was taken without delay to his brother, and there

discovered the trap that was laid for him. His brother had not sent for

him, and was greatly alarmed at what he considered a most inopportune

visit, in view of the general popular excitement, and the riot at the

prison gate. A heartrending scene took place between the two brothers.

John sought to induce his brother to leave the prison, the doors of

which, he argued, had to be opened to him, seeing he was sentenced to

banishment. Cornelius declined, on the ground that he had appealed from

the decree of proscription. He insisted that the judges pronounce him

either innocent or guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. To quit the

prison would be to accept the sentence which put a blot upon his name,

and against which he protested. Unable to induce his brother to flee,

John De Witt declared he would not leave him, and would share his fate.

While this debate, a struggle of fraternal generosity, was proceeding

in the prison of Cornelius, two officers and four militiamen of the Blue

Flag company forced themselves into the chamber in which the two

brothers were conversing, and assailed them with violent threats.

Alas! son of Joel; I shall let an eye-witness of that lamentable event

narrate it in his own words, and let us transmit the report to our

descendants:

"The officers and the militiamen found Cornelius De Witt lying on his

couch in a morning gown, and his brother seated near the head of the bed

reading to him out of the Bible. The Grand Pensionary sought to awaken

some sense of humanity in the maddened men who entered the room. They

only redoubled their threats, and compelled the two brothers to rise and

leave the room, saying they were to be taken to the place where

criminals are executed. The De Witts embraced each other tenderly at the

head of the stairs which led out of the castle, and bade each other

their last adieus. Cornelius De Witt, who, in consequence of the

torture, was very weak, descended leaning upon his brother's arm. The

latter, preserving a most heroic calmness in sight of so imminent a

danger, exhorted in kind language those who led him and his brother not

to commit so great an iniquity as they threatened to be guilty of. 'My

friends,' he said to them as he continued to descend the stairs,

sustaining his brother, 'we are innocent, we are not traitors to the

Republic; take us wherever you please, but take us to judges.' 'March!

March!' the officers answered, brutally pushing him forward and causing

him to trip and stumble over the lowest steps of the staircase; 'You

will soon know where you are taken to, traitors!'"

The iron gate that served as a defense to the castle had been forced

open. A portion of the mob penetrated into the outer yard which

separated the square from the facade of the castle, and where a low

stoop led up to an ogive door. The shadow, into which the vault of the

door threw the inside, allowed but an indistinct view of the lowest

steps of the staircase by which John and Cornelius De Witt descended.

The instant the two brothers appeared at the top of the stoop, whither

they were pushed by the militiamen of the Blue Flag, yells of hate and

vengeance broke forth from all sides.

"There they are!" "We got them both!" "Death to the De Witts!" "Death to

the traitors!" "Death to the French party!"

Separated from the two victims, and hemmed in by a compact mass of

people, Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and Nominoe were as impotent to bring the

slightest help to Cornelius and John as to flee from the spectacle that

they were about to witness. In that situation, and justly fearing to be

recognized as Frenchmen and massacred on the spot, they controlled their

grief and indignation, and only exchanged looks of despair as the

tragedy was enacted before their eyes.

The moment the two De Witts, John sustaining his brother, stepped out

upon the stoop, one of the militiamen raised his musket, holding it by

the barrel, and dealt Cornelius De Witt a furious blow upon the head,

shouting at the same time:

"Die, traitor! The blood, shed by the soldiers of Louis XIV, shall fall

upon your head! Death to all the accomplices of the French King!"

Stunned by the blow, Cornelius staggered and reeled. Instantly the

butcher seized him by the hair, and dragged him down to the bottom of

the stoop, brandishing his knife. John De Witt rushed forward to his

brother's help, but before he could descend two steps, a notary, Van

Soenen by name, barred his way, and, exclaiming: "Die, traitor! Your

friends the French murdered our prisoners at Swamerdam! Die, traitor,

renegade!" hurled his pike into the face of the Grand Pensionary,

transfixing it.

Blinded by the blood that spurted from his wound, John De Witt dropped

on one knee. He immediately endeavored to rise, crying: "My brother! My

brother!" But at that moment a man named Van Valen gripped him by the

throat, threw him to the ground, and planting his foot upon De Witt's

chest, discharged his pistol into the head of the prostrate man, loudly

vociferating: "Die, wretch! You betrayed your country! So shall all the

accomplices of Louis XIV die! Death to all papists!"

The corpse of John De Witt was dragged under the Buytenhoff Arcade

beside his brother's, whom the butcher killed. The mob pounced like

tigers upon the two bodies, riddled them with shots, stripped them

naked, mutilated them beyond recognition--and, Oh, frightful reprisals

that the two martyrs were the innocent victims of! each act of

sacrilegious profanation was accompanied with a thousand imprecations

intended to recall the atrocities committed by the soldiers of Louis

XIV, who crowned their acts of pillage, of incendiarism, of iniquities

perpetrated upon women, and of murder, by outraging even the corpses

which they stripped of their funeral robes, and deprived of burial!

Finally, the shapeless remains of the two great citizens were hung from

the gibbet where common malefactors were executed.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FLIGHT.

Salaun Lebrenn, his son, and their friend, the witnesses to the

massacre, stood shuddering with terror, when they were suddenly aroused

by the cries of several voices: "And now for Tilly!" "Death to Tilly!"

"To the sack of his house!" "Death to the traitors!" "Death to the

friends of the French!"

"Vengeance and reprisals!" howled the most infuriated of the mob. "To

Tilly's house! to Tilly's house! Sack the house of Tilly!"

The three Frenchmen, who were, until then, wedged in the compact mass of

the mob, and compelled, despite themselves, to witness the sight of the

popular fury, succeeded by dint of vigorous efforts in cleaving their

way in a diagonal line across the press, and finally freed themselves

entirely, while the mass of people took the direction of the house of

Monsieur Tilly.

Madam Tremblay and Abbot Boujaron, faithful to the recommendations of

Monsieur Tilly, kept the curtains of the windows closed, and abstained

from showing their faces. Standing near one of the embrasures, and

slightly parting the curtain, the Abbot sought to obtain a glimpse of

what went on upon the street, and cast furtive looks upon the square.

"Abbot!--no imprudence!" cried the Marchioness.

Mademoiselle Plouernel sat steeped in revery at the opposite end of the

parlor. Her mind dwelt indignantly upon the odious designs that her own

family had dared to plot, and in which so ignoble a role was assigned to

her. She remained an utter and indifferent stranger to all that was

happening within and without the house.

"Well, Abbot," inquired Madam Tremblay, "do you see anything on the

square?"

"Marchioness!" cried the Abbot, turning pale and stepping back from the

window, "we are lost! A mob of men armed with pikes and axes is just

turning into the square. They yell: 'Death to the French!' Listen!

Listen! Do you hear them? The mob is running this way, howling and

vociferating!"

Indeed, at that moment, a formidable clamor that drew ever nearer was

heard on the square, and distinctly could be made out the furious cries:

"Death to Tilly!" "Death to the French!" "Sack the house!"

"They are coming to murder Tilly!" stammered the Abbot, livid with

terror. "It is done for us! We are lost!"

"Abbot, you are losing your senses," replied the Marchioness endeavoring

to allay her own alarm. "Matters are not at such an extremity."

"Madam, do you not hear those furious cries: 'Vengeance and reprisals!'"

asked Mademoiselle Plouernel. "These people are coming to take

vengeance upon us for the atrocities committed by the troops of your

master, at the instigation of your infamous Catholic clergy!"

The danger grew ever more threatening. Hurried steps were heard in the

house, where the frightened servants were running about crying out to

one another and precipitately and noisily closing and bolting the main

door on the ground floor. The door, though thick and strong, and studded

with iron nails, could not long resist the assailants. Already it shook

under the repeated blows of axes and the butts of muskets, while a

volley of stones, thrown from the street, broke with a crash the

window-panes in the parlor. The shattered windows allowed the clamor

from without to reach the parlor with distinctness. "My sister was

violated and disemboweled by the soldiers of Louis XIV," cried the

butcher in his stentorian voice; "Vengeance and reprisals! French women

are housed in Tilly's residence! Fire upon the door and windows! We will

get in! Massacre and fury!"

The sound of a discharge of musketry fire followed almost instantly upon

the butcher's words. The house seemed to rock to its very foundations.

The fusilade continued uninterrupted. At the same time the main door,

already half broken down, was attacked with renewed blows of axes, and a

lever was applied to its hinges.

Suddenly the ceiling of the parlor shook with the vibrations of heavy

blows given with iron maces and by dint of which the main street door

finally fell in with a great crash. The vociferations of the assailants,

who irrupted into the house, reached the ears of the Abbot, the

Marchioness and Mademoiselle Plouernel. They stood petrified with

terror. At that instant a little door, that communicated with, and was

concealed by the drapery of the parlor flew open.

"The assassins are here!" stammered the Marchioness, almost dead with

fright. "We are lost! Mercy! Mercy!"

"We are saved!" cried Bertha of Plouernel, as she recognized in the new

arrivals Serdan and his two friends. "These are our liberators!"

The uproar and the distinct rush of hurrying and tumultuous steps

announced that the assailants were mounting the staircase. Serdan ran to

the principal door of the parlor, closed and double barred it.

"Mademoiselle," he said hurrying back to the young lady and pointing to

her the issue through which he had just entered, "flee by that door--the

corridor leads to a concealed staircase."

Already the parlor door cracked under the repeated blows from without.

Bertha, seized with a sort of vertigo, followed Serdan mechanically; the

Abbot pushed the Marchioness before him, and disappeared after the two

women in the corridor. The hall was left empty.

The parlor door, attacked with heavy axes, was rent and dashed into

splinters, giving a passage to the butcher, who rushed in followed by

his band. The Frenchwomen had vanished, but he saw the little door

through which they escaped hurriedly closed. He ran forward to open it,

or break it down with his fists. It resisted his efforts. Not having had

time to bolt the little door from the inside, Nominoe had placed his

back against it, and held it closed with his feet firmly planted against

the side-walls. Finding himself unable to force his passage, the butcher

called out for a hatchet in order to break down the obstacle that now

barred his progress.

"We can do better!" exclaimed one of the assailants. "Let us discharge

our muskets against the door. The balls will pierce the wood and kill

the man. Death to the traitors! Death to the French!"

Three muskets were lowered and fired.

While these incidents were following one another with the rapidity of

thought, the fugitives had crossed the corridor and descended the steps

of a masked staircase that led to a little inside yard, which opened

upon a narrow lane, into which a number of dark and vaulted passages,

common in The Hague, ran out. Serdan, being long familiar with the

entrances to Monsieur Tilly's residence, and bent upon endeavoring to

snatch Mademoiselle Plouernel from the frightful peril that threatened

her, the means of escape offered by these devious passages, of which the

assailants knew nothing, occurred to him. Through the same secret

passages the servants of Monsieur Tilly's household now took flight.

"Monsieur," said Bertha to Salaun in a fainting voice, "I implore you,

acquaint me with the name of the man to whom I owe my life and honor!

Give me the name of my generous deliverer!"

"Nominoe Lebrenn, my son, a mariner of the port of Vannes as is his

father, mademoiselle."

At that moment the detonations of the shots, fired upon the door which

Nominoe defended, resounded through the narrow corridor which the

fugitives had just left. The reverberations were immediately followed by

the distant and expiring cry of the young mariner: "Adieu, father! Flee!

Flee!"

"Unhappy boy! They have killed him!" cried Salaun Lebrenn in a

heartrending voice. "They have killed my dear Nominoe!"

Leaving Mademoiselle Plouernel to the care of Serdan, who just returned

after exploring the lane, Salaun Lebrenn re-ascended the flight of

stairs and ran to his son's aid.

"Come! Come, mademoiselle," said Serdan. "The lane is deserted. Night is

upon us. I answer for your safety the moment we have entered the first

vaulted passage."

Mademoiselle Plouernel did not seem to hear the words of her guide. She

stood motionless; her eyes roamed about bewildered; she murmured to

herself: "I am the cause of his death. They killed him! They killed my

liberator! Woe is me!"

"Make haste, madam; cross the yard, then the alley and enter into the

first passage to your right; then wait for me there," said Serdan to the

Marchioness and the Abbot, whose terror inspired them with the strength

to follow Serdan's instructions.

Serdan himself speedily joined them, sustaining, in fact carrying

Mademoiselle Plouernel, who had lost consciousness.

As Salaun Lebrenn was rushing to the assistance of his son, he ran in

the corridor against the butcher. "Wretch! You killed my son!" he cried;

and seizing the tall fellow by the throat threw him down. The two men

struggled on the floor. The obstruction of the narrow passage by the two

combatants impeded the advance of the butcher's companions. That instant

a ruddy glow projected itself into the corridor. It was the first

flickering flames of the conflagration that the men who remained in the

parlor had started. Salaun Lebrenn leaped up; the butcher, finding

himself free, fled back through the parlor, before escape from the fire

were too late. The Breton discovered his son lying prone and bathed in

his own blood. He took him on his shoulder, hastened to the masked

staircase, to the yard, to the alley, and, only then considering himself

safe, laid down his precious burden, ignorant as yet whether his son

lived or was dead. God be praised! Salaun Lebrenn felt the heart of

Nominoe beat.

Mademoiselle Plouernel having returned to consciousness, she could be

supported by Serdan to a carriage, and conveyed, together with the

Marchioness and the Abbot, to the port of Delft. Before leaving The

Hague the young girl had at least the consolation to know that, although

serious, the wounds received by Nominoe were not mortal. The guide to

whom Serdan entrusted the three fugitives inquired, upon his arrival in

Delft, after any outgoing vessel. A captain of Hamburg, a neutral city

whose merchant vessels had, consequently, nothing to fear from the

French, the English or the Dutch squadrons, agreed to convey the three

passengers to Havre-de-Grace. That same day the vessel set sail for

France, where it calculated to arrive safely after a short passage.

* * * * *

On the same day of the double murder of the De Witts the Assembly of the

States of Holland despatched a courier to the young Prince of Orange,

then encamped with his army at Alpen on the banks of the Rhine, between

Leyden and Woerden. The courier arrived as the Prince was about to sit

down to table. He opened one of the two despatches brought to him, read

it and said: "Gentlemen, I have good news to announce to the friends of

Fagel, who is greatly endeared to me. He was appointed yesterday Grand

Pensionary of Holland in consequence of the resignation of John De Witt.

Let us drink to the health of Grand Pensionary Fagel."

The Prince thereupon opened the second despatch and read it. His face

remained impassive; not the least emotion did his features betray. He

refolded the despatch, and sitting down where the cover was laid for

him, remarked: "I learn that both De Witts were yesterday massacred at

The Hague by the populace. May God pardon them, if it is true that they

betrayed the fatherland!" And turning to his chaplain, the Prince added

with unction: "You will order prayers to be read for the repose of the

souls of the two De Witts. May God be merciful unto them!"

* * * * *

These were the only words that the young Prince vouchsafed to the memory

of Cornelius and John De Witt.

PART II.

BRITTANY.

CHAPTER I.

NOMINOE.

The burg of Mezlean, situated on the coast of Brittany and at about

equal distances from the port of Vannes and from the druid stones of

Karnak, was inhabited mainly by Protestant families. Their ancestors, at

the time when the Reformation invaded and spread over Brittany, and

subsequently during the religious wars of the Sixteenth Century, had

quitted Vannes and founded, so to speak, this burg, in which they raised

a temple. This temple, destroyed in the reactionary days of the League,

of which lower Brittany was the last hot-bed, was replaced by a Catholic

church, and was later again rebuilt after the promulgation of the Edict

of Nantes by Henry IV. Upon that event, and for a long time after, the

reformers of Mezlean were not disturbed in the exercise of their faith.

The revival of the spirit of intolerance, however, which later caused

the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, speedily manifested

itself in Brittany also, and the Bishop of Vannes claimed the right of

restoring the temple of Mezlean to the Catholic cult. In pursuit of the

Bishop's designs, a thousand difficulties were thrown in the path of,

and a thousand vexations inflicted upon, the Protestants of the burg.

The rectors and curates of the neighboring Catholic parishes took the

hint, and rekindled religious animosities among their flocks by pointing

at their neighbors of Mezlean as stiff-necked heretics.

One day, towards the end of the month of May, in the year 1673, the burg

of Mezlean was, since early dawn, in great bustle over the preparations

for a wedding. The curious blocked the neighborhood of the shop of

Paskou the Long, so nicknamed for his thinness and tall stature. Paskou

the Long was a tailor by trade, besides being renowned for miles around

as a poet. His songs and plaintive love ditties caused him always to be

chosen for the function of "Baz-valan," or messenger of love, to the

girls of the place. Thanks to his good-heartedness, his witty sallies

and his irresistible humor, Paskou the Long was greatly beloved by the

people of Mezlean. The man's personal qualities, coupled with his poetic

talents, rendered him a matchless "Baz-valan." When, mounted upon a

white horse with braided mane gaily decked in ribbons, Paskou the Long

departed to negotiate some marriage, holding in his hands the symbolic

twig of broom in bloom, the emblem of love and unity, the lover was

almost certain to see the "Baz-valan" return the bearer of happy

tidings, unless, on his outward trip, he encountered a magpie, or saw a

crow perched upon a tree--sinister auguries that would cause Paskou the

Long to turn back his horse's head. If, on the contrary, a turtle dove,

nestled among the leaves, cooed on the passage of the messenger of love,

the Baz-valan felt certain of the success of his mission. It was a

treat to hear him sing the praises of his client, set into relief the

good points of the swain's personal appearance, laud his character,

enumerate the cattle in his stables, the bushels of garnered wheat in

his granary, readily and gaily meet the objections of the parents of the

_demanded girl_, in short, exhibit his matchless skill at cheering the

most morose, or at proving to the most incredulous that his client would

be the Phoenix of all husbands.

On that particular day, the curious of the burg of Mezlean thronged

around the door of Paskou the Long's house, which was contiguous to an

inn, the yard and outlying stables of which were crowded with wagons

hitched to the oxen or horses of the peasants who were to join the

nuptial procession charged with fetching the bride from her paternal

house, about a league away. The bridegroom, Nominoe Lebrenn, and his

father, Salaun Lebrenn, were in an upper chamber of Paskou the Long's

house. Nominoe seemed to be a prey to some secret anxiety. His pale and

haggard face bore the stamp of concentrated grief. Seated near a table

with his elbow resting upon it, he reclined his care-worn forehead upon

his hand. Standing beside his son, Salaun contemplated him with

amazement, and said to him considerately: "Verily, my son, I can hardly

believe that I heard you rightly. What! our relatives, our friends, all

assembled in the neighboring house, are waiting to join you in the

procession to your cousin Tina's house, and to bring her to Mezlean

where your wedding is to be celebrated in the temple--and all of a

sudden, without any reason therefor, you appear to waver before this

marriage that has been decided and agreed upon for so long a time!"

"Father," answered Nominoe with an effort, "I am not irrevocably engaged

until the Baz-valan has gone and taken my betrothed from her house--not

until after that last ceremony has been performed, is it forbidden to me

unless I am ready to be taken for a faithless man, heartless and without

honor, to retract my word."

Salaun listened to his son with increased amazement and replied: "Am I

awake, or am I dreaming? Is not this union, so much desired by your

mother's brother and me, and planned, I may say, since your and Tina's

birth--is it not also the constant aspiration of you two? Did you not

exchange rings shortly after our voyage to The Hague? Finally, was it

not in concert with your uncle, his daughter and yourself, that

recently, upon our return from our cruise along the coasts of Saintonge

and Guyenne, the day for your marriage was fixed? And, now, you mean to

pretend that, in the absence of an insignificant formality, you would

still be free to break an engagement that you voluntarily accepted and

remained true to for so many years! I seek in vain for the cause of this

change, an inconceivable change, a change that is so unexpected!"

Nominoe answered without raising his eyes to his father: "I was weak; I

failed in sincerity; but, I still can draw back before a fatal final

step. Brought up with Tina, habituated to see in her the future

companion of my life, I believed I loved her. I mistook for that

sentiment the fraternal affection that I entertained for her since

childhood. But little by little the truth dawned upon my heart, and I

discovered that Tina was not and never could be aught to me but a

sister. Unfortunately I did not have the courage to destroy the poor

girl's illusion. I recoiled before the thought of the grief that the

rupture of this alliance between our two families would cause you and my

uncle. I admit it--I recoiled before the declaration that, however

tardily, I now feel forced to make, at last. Now, when the hour is

approached in which I was to unite my fate with Tina's, I interrogate

myself with the inexorable severity of a judge, and I declare to you,

father, that I fear, were I to marry Tina, I could not render her as

happy as she deserves to be. Finally, there is another grave reason for

my decision not to contract this union: At any moment now, the

insurrection, that has so long been brewing in Brittany, may break out

with fury. I hold it would be an act of imprudence on my part to wed

Tina on the eve of a civil war, in which I may be killed. Looked at from

any side we choose, it is preferable that the wedding do not take

place."

The face of Salaun Lebrenn grew sadder and more serious. His son's

embarrassment, and the weakness of the reasons that he adduced to

justify his sudden change, clearly betrayed the fact that the young man

was but beating about for pretexts for a rupture, the real reason for

which he sought to conceal.

"My son," replied Salaun in a firm and grave tone, "this is the first

time in your life, I think, that you have lowered yourself before me by

resorting to a ruse, to equivocation, and even to untruth! You dare not

look me in the face, and you stammer out your pretended reasons for a

rupture that you feel ashamed of!"

And the father, taking pity upon his son's prostration, softened the

severity of his tone by adding: "Nominoe, I shall now address myself to

your loyalty of heart. I wish to believe, I do believe that your

scruples, so tardily expressed, are sincere. You fear you may not render

Tina as happy as the good girl deserves. You fear to plunge her into

mortal anxiety for your life, perhaps into the mourning of widowhood,

should the insurrection of Brittany break out to-morrow. To all that my

answer is: You would have to be a man of selfish heart before I could

believe you capable of rendering unhappy a creature who loves you with

all her heart and soul. But you are what you are. Now, then, I swear to

God, whatever the nature may be of your affection for your wife, she

will have nothing for which to envy the happiest of wives. My conviction

on that head is complete, absolute. Do you imagine that, if I believed

otherwise, I would fail to be the first to wish, in fact, to order you,

however late the hour, to break off the match? No, no, my son, I have

more confidence in you than you seem to have in yourself. There, then,

remains this one objection--the imminence of an uprising in which we

would take part, and, consequently, Tina's anxiety for your safety. As

to that, you are right, my son; your apprehensions are well founded; but

the sorrows that you foresee for your bride are not pressing, while, on

the other hand, I see a certain sentence of death for the poor girl in

your refusal to marry her."

"Great God!" exclaimed Nominoe with a shudder, unable to prevent himself

from sharing his father's fears.

"Listen to me. At this very hour that I am speaking to you, Tina,

surrounded by her girl companions, her head decked with the bridal

ribbons, is awaiting you from minute to minute, with her eyes upon the

Mezlean road, her heart beating with joy and tender impatience. Instead

of the nuptial procession, preceded by the radiant Baz-valan holding in

his hand the twig of broom in bloom, she is to see him from a distance

on the road, coming to her sad, alone and with the twig broken. The poor

girl will understand the symbol, the ruin of her hopes. She will feel

herself deserted, considered by you unworthy of being your wife. She

will not complain. Not a single reproach will escape her lips. She will

even endeavor to appease her father's indignation. She will say to him:

'Nominoe is master of his own heart; he has loved me; he loves me no

more; I was his promised wife, but am not to be his wedded wife. What

did I do to be deserted? I know not, and am resigned. May he be happy.

As children we were put to sleep in the same cradle. He always was the

friend of my youth. My only wish is that he may be happy. It is my last

wish!' And as she utters these words," Salaun proceeded to say in a

shaken voice, "tears will wet the pale and sweet countenance of Tina. In

silence the poor girl will untie her bridal ribbons, will put off her

wedding robes, and returning to her household work, will resume her

distaff--all without expressing one bitter word. She will suffer

without complaining. The period of her sufferings will be more or less

prolonged, and then," added Salaun, tears beginning to interfere with

his speech, "and then, at the end of this month, perhaps before the end

of this week, the people of the burg of Mezlean will say: 'You know

little Tina, the daughter of Tankeru the blacksmith? Well, she died!'"

At these last words, pronounced by Salaun with poignant simplicity,

Nominoe could no longer hold back his tears. The natural kindness of his

heart triumphed over his indecision, and he cried:

"Oh, father! You are right. My desertion of her would cause Tina's

death! I shall not be guilty of the murder. You shall live, dear child!

You shall live! Hap what hap may, I shall make you happy. Let my destiny

be fulfilled!"

"And you also will be happy!" replied Salaun with joy, as he took his

son in his arms. "Come, dear boy! My insistence is the presentiment of

the bliss that awaits you two. You are worthy the one of the other. You

will both be happy, dear children!"

Saying this, Salaun ran to the door that opened upon the staircase of

the tailor's shop, opened it and called down from the banister: "To

horse, Paskou the Long! To horse, joyful Baz-valan! Call our relatives

and friends! Worthy herald of nuptial ceremonies, take your gay sprig of

broom in bloom, and to horse!"

"It is done!" said Nominoe to himself while his father was calling to

the Baz-valan. "Adieu, insane hopes! Adieu, deceitful, senseless

visions, yet so dear to my heart! Adieu, gilded dream, a dream as

distant from reality as heaven is from the pit! This morning, when I

learned of the arrival of Mademoiselle Plouernel at Mezlean, I intended

to break off this match. Poor fool! Return to your senses, to earth!

Your marriage will put an end to the visions that led your mind astray!"

"Let us depart, my son! Make haste! Poor Tina must have begun to feel

uneasy," observed Salaun to his son. "All our relatives and friends are

waiting for us. Quick, to horse!"

A moment later the nuptial procession, headed by the Baz-valan and

Nominoe, left the burg of Mezlean and took the road to the house of

Tankeru the blacksmith, the father of Tina, the bride.