When De la Forêt and Angèle saw the Queen again it was in the royal
chapel.
Perhaps the longest five minutes of M. de la Forêt’s life were those
in which he waited the coming of the Queen on that Trinity Sunday
which was to decide his fate. When he saw Elizabeth enter the chapel
his eyes swam, till the sight of them was lost in the blur of color
made by the motions of gorgeously apparelled courtiers and the people
of the household. When the Queen had taken her seat and all was
quiet, he struggled with himself to put on such a front of simple
boldness as he would wear upon day of battle. The sword the Queen had
given him was at his side, and his garb was still that of a
gentleman, not of a Huguenot minister such as Elizabeth in her grim
humor, and to satisfy her bond with France, would make of him this
day.
The brown of his face had paled in the weeks spent in the palace and
in waiting for this hour; anxiety had toned the ruddy vigor of his
bearing; but his figure was the figure of a soldier and his hand that
of a strong man. He shook a little as he bowed to her Majesty, but
that passed, and when at last his eye met that of the Duke’s Daughter
he grew steady; for she gave him, as plainly as though her tongue
spoke, a message from Angèle. Angèle herself he did not see--she was
kneeling in an obscure corner, her father’s hand in hers, all the
passion of her life pouring out in prayer.
De la Forêt drew himself up with an iron will. No nobler figure of a
man ever essayed to preach the Word, and so Elizabeth thought; and
she repented of the bitter humor which had set this trial as his
chance of life in England and his freedom from the hand of Catherine.
The man bulked larger in her eyes than he had ever done, and she
struggled with herself to keep the vow she had made to the Duke’s
Daughter the night that Angèle had been found in De la Forêt’s rooms.
He had been the immediate cause, fated or accidental, of the destined
breach between Leicester and herself; he had played a significant
part in her own life. Glancing at her courtiers, she saw none that
might compare with him, the form and being of calm boldness and
courage. She sighed she knew scarce why.
When De la Forêt first opened his mouth and essayed to call the
worshippers to prayer no words came forth--only a dry whisper. Some
ladies simpered, and more than one courtier laughed silently. Michel
saw, and his face flamed up. But he laid a hand on himself, and a
moment afterwards his voice came forth, clear, musical, and resonant,
speaking simple words, direct and unlacquered sentences, passionately
earnest withal. He stilled the people to a unison of sentiment, none
the less interested and absorbed because it was known that he had
been the cause of the great breach between the Queen and the
favorite. Ere he had spoken far, flippant gallants had ceased to
flutter handkerchiefs, to idly move their swords upon the floor.
[Illustration: “‘AND WHAT MATTER WHICH IT IS WE WIELD’”]
He took for his text, “_Stand and search for the old paths_.” The
beginning of all systems of religion, the coming of the Nazarene, the
rise and growth of Christianity, the martyrdoms of the early Church,
the invasion of the truth by false doctrine, the abuses of the
Church, the Reformation, the martyrdom of the Huguenots for the
return to the early principles of Christianity, the “search for the
old paths,” he set forth in a tone generous but not fiery, presently
powerful and searching, yet not declamatory. At the last he raised
the sword that hung by his side and the book that lay before him, and
said:
“And what matter which it is we wield--this steel that strikes for
God or this book which speaks of Him? For the book is the sword of
the Spirit, and the sword is the life of humanity; for all faith must
be fought for and all that is has been won by strife. But the paths
wherein ye go to battle must be the old paths; your sword shall be
your staff by day and the book your lantern by night. That which ye
love ye shall teach, and that which ye teach ye shall defend; and if
your love be a true love your teaching shall be a great teaching and
your sword a strong sword which none may withstand. It shall be the
pride of sovereign and of people; and so neither ‘height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of
God.’”
Ere he had ended some of the ladies were overcome, the eyes of the
Duke’s Daughter were full of tears, and Elizabeth said, audibly, when
he ceased speaking: “On my soul, I have no bishop with a tongue like
his. Would that my lord of Ely were here to learn how truth should be
spoke. Henceforth my bishops shall first be Camisards.”
Of that hour’s joyful business the Queen wrote thus to the Medici
before the day was done:
“Cancelling all other letters on the matter, this M. de la Forêt
shall stay in my kingdom. I may not be the headsman of one of my
faith--as eloquent a preacher as he was a brave soldier. Abiding by
the strict terms of our treaty with my brother of France, he shall
stay with us in peace and in our own care. He hath not the eloquence
of a Knox, but he hath the true thing in him, and that speaks.”
To the Duke’s Daughter the Queen said, “On my soul, he shall be
married instantly, or my ladies will carry him off and murder him for
love.”
And so it was that the heart of Elizabeth the Queen warmed again, and
dearly, towards two Huguenot exiles, and showed that in doing justice
she also had not so sour a heart towards her sex as was set down to
her credit. Yet she made one further effort to keep De la Forêt in
her service. When Michel, once again, declined, dwelt earnestly on
his duty towards the widow of his dead chief, and begged leave to
share her exile in Jersey, Elizabeth said, “On my soul, but I did not
think there was any man on earth so careless of princes’ honors!”
To this De la Forêt replied that he had given his heart and life to
one cause, and since Montgomery had lost all, even life, the least
Michel de la Forêt could do was to see that the woman who loved him
be not unprotected in the world. Also, since he might not at this
present fight for the cause, he could speak for it; and he thanked
the Queen of England for having shown him his duty. All that he
desired was to be quiet for a space somewhere in “her high Majesty’s
good realm” till his way was clear to him.
“You would return to Jersey, then, with our friend of Rozel?”
Elizabeth said, with a gesture towards Lemprière, who, now recovered
from his wound, was present at the audience.
De la Forêt inclined his head. “If it be your high Majesty’s
pleasure.”
And Lemprière of Rozel said, “He would return with myself your noble
Majesty’s friend before all the world, and Buonespoir his ship the
_Honeyflower_.”
Elizabeth’s lips parted in a smile, for she was warmed with the
luxury of doing good, and she answered:
“I know not what the end of this will be, whether our loyal Lemprière
will become a pirate or Buonespoir a butler to my court; but it is
too pretty a hazard to forego in a world of chance. By the rood, but
I have never, since I sat on my father’s throne, seen black so white
as I have done this past three months. You shall have your
Buonespoir, good Rozel; but if he plays pirate any more--tell him
this from his Queen--upon an English ship, I will have his head, if I
must needs send Drake of Devon to overhaul him.”
That same hour the Queen sent for Angèle, and by no leave, save her
own, arranged the wedding-day, and ordained that it should take place
at Southampton, whither the Comtesse de Montgomery had come on her
way to Greenwich to plead for the life of Michel de la Forêt and to
beg Elizabeth to save her poverty, both of which things Elizabeth
did, as the annals of her life record.
After Elizabeth--ever self-willed--had declared her way about the
marriage ceremony, looking for no reply save that of silent
obedience, she made Angèle sit at her feet and tell her whole story
again from first to last. They were alone, and Elizabeth showed to
this young refugee more of her own heart than any other woman had
ever seen. Not by words alone, for she made no long story; but once
she stooped and kissed Angèle upon the cheek, and once her eyes
filled up with tears, and they dropped upon her lap unheeded. All the
devotion shown herself as a woman had come to naught; and it may be
that this thought stirred in her now. She remembered how Leicester
and herself had parted, and how she was denied all those soft
resources of regret which were the right of the meanest women in her
realm. For, whatever she might say to her Parliament and people, she
knew that all was too late--that she would never marry, and must go
childless and uncomforted to her grave. Years upon years of delusion
of her people, of sacrifice to policy, had at last become a
self-delusion, to which her eyes were not full opened yet--she sought
to shut them tight. But these refugees, coming at the moment of her
own struggle, had changed her heart from an ever-growing bitterness
to human sympathy. When Angèle had ended her tale once more the Queen
said:
“God knows ye shall not linger in my court. Such lives have no place
here. Get you back to my Isle of Jersey, where ye may live in peace.
Here all is noise, self-seeking, and time-service. If ye twain are
not happy I will say the world should never have been made.”
Before they left Greenwich Palace--M. Aubert and Angèle, De la Forêt,
Lemprière, and Buonespoir--the Queen made Michel de la Forêt the gift
of a chaplaincy to the crown. To Monsieur Aubert she gave a small
pension, and in Angèle’s hands she placed a deed of dower worthy of a
generosity greater than her own.
At Southampton Michel and Angèle were married by royal license, and
with the Comtesse de Montgomery set sail in Buonespoir’s boat, the
_Honeyflower_, which brought them safe to St. Helier’s, in the Isle
of Jersey.