The famous peace of Alais, which terminated, during the reign of Louis
XIII., the struggles of the Protestants of France for a distinct
organization and left them nothing but an insecure toleration, was
concluded on the 27th of June, 1629, a few days after the reunion of
Edward and Lucette. None can doubt that Richelieu was politically right
in asserting and enforcing the sovereign authority over a body of men
who had made religious differences a pretext for rebellion and a
continual source of exaction and menace. Nor can any one accuse him of
having violated his word in any degree to the Huguenots. They were
suffered to follow the forms of their religion in peace; their peculiar
tenets formed no obstacle to their admission into the highest offices in
France; and the Duc de Rohan himself was employed in high and delicate
negotiations, and ultimately fell in the military service of the monarch
against whom he had so often fought.
A few days after the period to which we have carried our story in the
last chapter, the hundred thousand crowns in gold, which were necessary
for him, as well to provide for his troops as to repair his own
shattered fortunes, were paid to the duke, according to Richelieu's
promise; and the Protestant army was immediately disbanded,--glad to
escape from the inevitable ruin and disaster which hung over their
heads.
The peace concluded at Suza restored those friendly relations with
England which had so long been broken off. Spain and Savoy were, at
least for the time, cowed by the power of France; and all men, both
friends and enemies, saw in the well-directed operations of the French
armies and the success of French diplomacy the great military and
political genius of Armand du Plessis.
In the mean time, the cardinal kindly left Edward and Lucette to the
enjoyment of each other's society; and it was not till some six or seven
days after the union which he himself had aided so much to bring about
that he visited them at the castle of Bourillaut. Great success, if in
the end it makes men haughty and overbearing, seems at first to soften
and expand the heart; and Richelieu, at the culminating-point of his
fortunes, sat down and conversed with the two young people as their
friend. He amused himself somewhat with their love, and expressed, and
probably felt, some gratification at their happiness.
"Monsieur Langdale," he said, "a foolish prediction has been made to me,
that as you and I were born on the same hour of the same day of the same
month, though a number of years apart,--how many I do not remember,--my
fate and yours should run together; and, though of course I put no faith
in it, that prophecy has as yet proved remarkably true. I am therefore
very desirous to attach you to me, now that peace is signed between
France and England; and you must tell me, according to a promise which
you once made, what post I can give you at the court of France."
Edward and Lucette looked at each other; and then, with his usual
frankness, Edward answered, "No post your Eminence can give me can
attach me more strongly to you than that which you have already given
me,--the husband of this dear lady. Two days ago we had a long
consultation with our good friend Clement Tournon, and laid out our
plans for life. He is resolved, with the sum he has amassed, to purchase
a small and beautiful estate and chateau which he has seen not far from
Paris; and Lucette and myself intend to live there a great part of each
year as his son and daughter. We shall of course visit England from time
to time; but our wish is to avoid courts and cities as much as may be."
"Young people's dreams," said Richelieu, gravely.
"That may be," said Edward, "but I trust it will not prove so. However,
if your Eminence were to give me some high post, you would make many of
the French nobility dissatisfied, and you might find me ungrateful; but,
as it is, I shall be near you the greater part of my days; and, whether
I may be in England or in France, if at any time I can serve you with my
hand, or my head, or my heart, believe me, I will not forget these happy
days are all owing to your great goodness."
"I wish I could dream," said the cardinal, looking down thoughtfully.
"It must be a very happy thing to be so confident of the world and of
fate and of oneself. But be it so, Monsieur Langdale. Only remember!"
"My lord, have I ever forgotten?" asked Edward.
"No, no," said Richelieu; "and it is for that I have esteemed you. Come
and see me when you are near Paris; for when I have a leisure hour I
shall love your conversation. We will talk of art, and literature, and
science; and I shall banish for that hour the thought of politics, and
intrigue, and cabal: oh, how I hate them! And if you have a son," he
continued, laying his hand kindly upon that of Lucette as he rose to
depart, "you shall call his name Armand."
"And you shall bless him," cried Lucette, warmly, kissing his hand; "and
I will tell him that you made his father and myself happy."
Perhaps, in all his career of splendid misery, that was one of the
happiest hours that Richelieu had ever experienced.
The Prince de Soubise, as is well known, did not return to France and
make his full submission to his king till Edward and Lucette had been
married some time. To Edward, whom he met at the court not long after
the final fall of Marie de Medici, he was polite and even friendly; but,
whether it was that he was naturally of a more haughty disposition than
his brother the Duc de Rohan, or that he was never placed under the same
pressure of circumstances, he refused to acknowledge, by any authentic
act, the legality of the marriage between his young cousin and the son
of one of his earliest friends. It made no difference to them, however,
nor troubled their peace in the least; and in the end, after witnessing
their mutual felicity for many years, both he and his brother the duke,
by their own wretched experience, were forced to acknowledge that a
marriage of affection has more chance for happiness than a marriage of
convenience. Still, however, with the same peculiar obduracy which had
characterized his resistance to the crown in the hopeless war of the
Protestants against Louis XIII., he refused to sign, on several
occasions, the papers which were necessary to enable Lucette to enter
fully into possession of her father's estates, saying that he would not
recognise her marriage with the second son of a simple English
gentleman. But his consent was passed over by certain forms of the
Parliament; and as for Madame de Chevreuse, with her usual gay
lightness, she signed her approbation of the marriage without a word of
opposition,--when she found that opposition would be vain. She was even
inclined to be exceedingly kind and intimate with the young pair; but
Edward gave no encouragement to her advances, and she satisfied herself
by declaring that, like many of his countrymen, he was a handsome man,
but somewhat brutal.
In regard to Edward's claim to the estate of Buckley, there was no
opposition; and he kept quiet possession during the whole of his life of
that fine part of his inheritance. The estates of Langley were suffered
to go greatly to decay for several years, the rents accumulating in the
hands of the agent without ever being called for or paid over to any
one.
How this property reverted to Edward himself, and how the objections of
the Prince de Soubise to the marriage of his young cousin with Edward
Langdale were at last done away,--what was the ultimate fate of Sir
Richard Langdale,--and how an old proverb was verified,--would be too
long of telling in the pages which yet remain.
Perhaps, if God spares the life, the health, and the senses of the
author of this work, these particulars may all be related in another. At
all events, the history of Lord Montagu's Page is completed; for it
would be folly to pursue that history in the calm, continued,
uninterrupted happiness of his married life. Every one has been
unsuccessful in painting happiness with the pen. Dante failed in his
Paradiso, Milton in his Paradise Regained; and the writer of these pages
is not sufficiently presumptuous to suppose that he could succeed in
representing a state as near as this world permits to that which they
attempted to picture in vain.
THE END.
STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO.
PHILADELPHIA.
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Transcriber's notes:
P.18. 'It it' is changed to 'It is'
P.76. 'stoop' changed to 'swoop'.
P. 106, 'dulness' changed to 'dullness'.
P.108. 'Rochelois' changed to 'Rochellois'.
P.126. 'Loge' changed to 'Logé'.
P. 211. 'Loir' changed to 'Loire'.
P. 219. 'th' changed to 'there'.
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