There was a curious scene in our salon the day after the news had come
of the great victory of Lens. Clement Darpent had been brought in by my
brother, who wished him to hear some English songs which my sister and
I had been practicing. He had been trying to learn English, and perhaps
understood it better than he could speak it, but he was somewhat
perplexed by those two gallant lines--
‘I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.’
Annora’s eyes flashed with disappointed anger as she said, ‘You enter
not into the sentiment, Monsieur. I should have hoped that if any
Frenchman could, it would be you!’
‘For my part,’ observed my mother, ‘I am not surprised at the question
not being appreciated by the gens de la robe.’
I saw Eustace look infinitely annoyed at this insult to his friend’s
profession, and to make it worse, Gaspard, who had come home that
morning from the palace, exclaimed, having merely caught the word
‘honour’--
‘Yes, the gens de la robe hate our honour. That is why the King said,
when news of our great victory came, ‘Oh, how sorry the Parliament will
be!’
‘Did he?’ exclaimed my mother. ‘Is it true, my grandson?’
‘True; yes indeed, Madame ma Grandmere,’ replied Gaspard. ‘And you
should have seen how all the world applauded him.’
‘I would not have applauded him,’ said Eustace sadly. ‘I would have
tried to teach him that nothing can be of more sad omen for a king than
to regard his Parliament as his enemy.’
‘My son,’ returned my mother, ‘if you must utter such absurdities, let
it not be before this child. Imagine the consequence of his repeating
them!’
‘Ah! sighed Darpent, ‘it would be well if only, through child lips or
any others, the King and his mother could learn that the Parliament can
heartily rejoice in all that is for the true glory and honour in justice
and in the well-being of her people, and that we love above all!’
‘There,’ said I, glad to turn the conversation from the dangerous
political turn it was taking, ‘I knew it was merely the language and not
the sentiment of our song that Monsieur Darpent did not comprehend.’
And when it was translated and paraphrased, he exclaimed, ‘Ah! truly
Mademoiselle may trust me that such sentiments are the breath of life
to those who are both French and of the robe. May ONE at least live to
prove it to her!’
The times were threatening in France as well as in England, for if in
the latter realm, the thunderbolt had fallen, in the former, the tempest
seemed to be gathering. They say that it dispersed after a few showers,
but there are others who say that it is only stored up to fall with
greater fury in later times. Ah, well! if it be so, I pray that none
of mine may be living to see it, for I cannot conceal from myself that
there is much among us that may well call down the vengeance of Heaven.
Yet, if our good Duke of Burgundy fulfil the promise of his youth, the
evil may yet be averted.
The Parliament of Paris had made an attempt to check the reckless
exactions of the Court by refusing to register the recent edicts for
taxation, and it was this that made the Queen so angry with them.
Eustace began to explain that it had been the unfortunate endeavour
to raise money without the consent of Parliament that had been the
immediate cause of the troubles in England for which they were still
suffering. This implied censure of King Charles so displeased my mother
that she declared that she would listen to such treason no longer,
started up and quitted the room, calling Annora with her. Poor Annora
gave one of her grim looks, but was obliged to obey; I did not feel
bound to do the same, as indeed I stood in the position of hostess: so
I remained, with Gaspard leaning on my lap, while my brother and M.
Darpent continued their conversation, and the latter began to describe
the actual matter in debate, the Paulette, namely, the right of
magistrates to purchase the succession to their offices for their sons,
provided a certain annual amount was paid to the Crown. The right had to
be continually renewed by fresh edicts for a certain term. This term was
now over, and the Crown refused to renew it except on condition that all
that salaries should be forfeited for four years. To our English notions
the whole system was a corruption, but the horrible ill faith of the
Court, which ruined and cheated so many families, was nevertheless
shocking to us. Clement Darpent, who had always looked on the Paulette
as a useful guarantee, and expected to succeed to his father’s office as
naturally as Eustace had done to the baronies of Walwyn and Ribaumont,
could not then see it in the same light, and expatiated on the speeches
made by the Councillors Broussel, Blancmesnil, and others, on the
injustice of such a measure.
Gaspard caught the name of Blancmesnil, and looking up, he said
‘Blancmesnil! It is he that the King says is a scoundrel to resist his
will; but he will soon be shut up. They are going to arrest him.’
‘Pray how long have they taken little imps like thee into their
counsels?’ demanded Eustace, as we all sat petrified at this
announcement.
‘It was the Duke of Anjou who told me,’ said Gaspard. ‘He was sitting at
the foot of the Queen’s bed when she settled it all with M. le Cardinal.
They will send to have coup de main made of all those rogues as soon as
the Te Deum is over tomorrow at Notre Dame, and then there will be no
more refusing of money for M. le Prince to beat the Spaniards with.’
‘The Duke should choose his confidants better,’ said Eustace. ‘Look
here, my nephew. Remember from henceforth that whatever passes in secret
council is sacred, and even if told to thee inadvertently should never
be repeated. Now leave us; your mother needs you no longer.’
My little boy made his graceful bow at the door, looking much perplexed,
and departed. I rose likewise, saying I would forbid him to repeat his
dangerous communication, and I trusted that it would do him no harm.
‘Madame,’ said M. Darpent, ‘I will not conceal from you that I shall
take advantage of what I have heard to warn these friends of my father.’
‘You cannot be expected to do otherwise,’ said Eustace; ‘and truly the
design is so arbitrary and unjust that, Cavalier as I am, I cannot but
rejoice that it should be baffled.’
‘And,’ added Darpent, before I could speak, ‘Madame may be secure that
no word shall pass my lips respecting the manner in which I received the
warning.’
I answered that I could trust him for that. I could not expect any more
from him, and indeed none of us were bound in honour. The fault was with
the Duke of Anjou, who, as we all know, was an incorrigible chatter-box
all his life, and never was trusted with any State secrets at all; but
his mother must have supposed him not old enough to understand what she
was talking about, when she let him overhear such a conversation.
Gaspard had, however, a private lecture from both of us on the need of
holding his tongue, both on this matter and all other palace gossip.
He was no longer in waiting, and I trusted that all would be forgotten
before his turn came again; but he was to join in the state procession
on the following day, a Sunday, when the King and Queen-Regent were
return thanks at Notre Dame for the victory at Lens.
Ah, children! we had victories then. Our Te Deums were not sung with
doubting hearts, to make the populace believe a defeat a victory--a
delusion to which this French nation of ours is only too prone. My
countryman, Marlborough, and the little truant Abbe, Eugene of Savoy,
were not then the leaders of the opposite armies; but at the head of
our own, we had M. le Prince and the Vicomte de Turenne in the flower
of their age, and our triumphs were such that they might well intoxicate
the King, who was, so to speak, brought up upon them. It was a
magnificent sight, which we all saw from different quarters--my mother
in the suite of the Queen of England, Gaspard among the little noblemen
who attended the King, I among the ladies who followed Mademoiselle,
while my brother and sister, though they might have gone among their own
Queen’s train, chose to shift for themselves. They said they should see
more than if, like us, they formed part of the pageant; but I believe
the real reason was, that if they had one early to Queen Henrietta’s
apartments in full dress, they must have missed their English prayers at
the Ambassador’s, which they never chose to do on a Sunday.
The choir part of the nave was filled with tribunes for the royal
family and their suites; and as the most exalted in rank went the last,
Mademoiselle, and we ladies behind her, came to our places early enough
to see a great deal of the rest of the procession. The whole choir was
already a field of clergy and choristers, the white robes of the latter
giving relief to the richly-embroidered purple and lace-covered robes
of the Bishops, who wore their gold and jeweled mitres, while their
richly-gilded pastoral staves and crosses were borne before them. The
Coadjutor of Paris, who was to be the Celebrant, was already by the
Altar, his robes absolutely encrusted with gold; and just after we had
taken our places there passed up the Cardinal, with his pillars borne
before him, in his scarlet hat and his robes.
Every lady was, according to the Spanish fashion, which Queen Anne had
introduced, in black or in white--the demoiselles in white, the married
in black--and all with the black lace veil on their heads. The French
ladies had murmured much at this, but there is no denying that the
general effect was much better for the long lines of black above and
white below, and as there was no restriction upon their jewellery,
emeralds, rubies, and diamonds flashed wherever the light fell on them.
Beyond, a lane was preserved all down the length of the nave by
the tall, towering forms of the Scottish archers, in their rich
accoutrements, many of them gallant gentlemen, who had served under the
Marquess of Montrose; and in the aisles behind them surged the whole
multitude--gentlemen, ladies, bourgeois, fishwives, artisans, all sorts
of people, mixed up together, and treating one another with a civility
and forbearance of which my brother and sister confessed and English
crowd would have been incapable, though they showed absolutely no
reverence to the sacred place; and I must own the ladies showed as
little, for every one was talking, laughing, bowing to acquaintance,
or pointing out notorieties, and low whispers were going about of some
great and secret undertaking of the Queen-Regent. Low, did I say! Nay, I
heard the words ‘Blancmesnil and Broussel’ quite loud enough to satisfy
me that if the attempt had been disclosed, it would not be possible
to fix the blame of betraying it on my little son more than on twenty
others. Indeed the Queen of England observed to her niece, loud enough
for me to hear her, that it was only too like what she remembered only
seven years ago in England, when her dear King had gone down to arrest
those five rogues of members, and all had failed because of that vile
gossip Lady Carlisle.
‘And who told my Lady Carlisle?’ demanded Mademoiselle with some
archness; whereupon Queen Henrietta became very curious to know whether
the handsome Duke of Beaufort were, after his foolish fashion, in the
crowd, making himself agreeable to the ladies of the market-place.
Trumpets, however, sounded, and all rose from their seats, as up the
nave swept Queen Anne, her black mantilla descending over her fair hair
from a little diamond crown, her dress--white satin--with a huge long
blue velvet train worked with gold fleurs-de-lys, supported by four pair
of little pages in white satin. Most regal did she look, leading by the
hand the little Duke of Anjou; while the young King, who was now old
enough to form the climax of the procession, marched next after in blue
and gold, holding his plumed hat in his hand, and bowing right and left
with all his royal courtesy and grace, his beautiful fair hair on his
shoulders, shining with the sun. And there was my little Marquis among
the boys, who immediately followed him in all his bright beauty and
grace.
Most glorious was the High Mass that followed. Officer after officer
marched up and laid standard after standard before the Altar, heavy
with German blazonry, or with the red and gold stripes of Aragon, the
embattled castles of Castille, till they amounted to seventy-three. It
must have been strange to the Spanish Queen to rejoice over these as
they lay piled in a gorgeous heap before the high Altar, here and there
one dim with weather or stained with blood. The peals of the Te Deum
from a thousand voices were unspeakably magnificent, and yet through
them all it seemed to me that I heard the wail not only of the
multitudes of widowed wives and sonless parents, but of the poor
peasants of all the nation, crying aloud to Heaven for the bread which
they were forbidden to eat, when they had toiled for it in the sweat of
their brow. Yes, and which I was not permitted to let them enjoy!
Ah! which did the Almighty listen to? To the praise, or to the mourning,
lamentation, and woe? You have often wondered, my children, that I
absented myself from the Te Deums of victory while we had them. Now you
know the reason.
And then I knew that all this display was only an excuse under which the
Queen hid her real design of crushing all opposition to her will. She
wanted to commit an injustice, and silence all appeals against it, so
that the poor might be more and more ground down! How strange in the
woman whom I had seen bearing patiently, nay, joyfully, with the murmurs
of the faggot-seller in the hospital! Truly she knew not what she did!
As she left the Cathedral, and passed M. de Comminges, a lieutenant of
her Guards, she said: ‘Go, and Heaven be with you.’
I was soon at home safely with my boys, to carry an account of our
doings to my dear little M. d’Aubepine, who, unable to bear the fatigue
and the crush of Notre Dame, had taken her little children to a Mass of
thanksgiving celebrated by our good Abbe at the nearest Church.
We waited long and long for the others to come. I was not uneasy for my
mother, who was with the Queen; but the servants brought reports that
the canaille had risen, and that the streets were in wild confusion. We
could see nothing, and only heard wild shouts from time to time. What
could have become of Eustace and Annora? My mother would have been
afraid that with their wild English notions they had rushed into
something most unsuitable to a French demoiselle, and I was afraid
for Eustace, if they were involved in any crowd or confusion, for his
strength was far from being equal to his spirit. We watched, sure that
we heard cries and shouts in the distance, the roar of the populace,
such as I remembered on that wedding day, but sharper and shriller, as
French voices are in a different key from the English roar and growl.
It passed, however, and there was long silence. Gaspard and Armantine
stood at the window, and at last, as evening twilight fell, cried out
that a carriage was coming in at the porte cochere. Presently Annora ran
into the room, all in a glow, and Eustace followed more slowly.
‘Have you been frightened?’ she cried. ‘Oh, we have had such an
adventure! If they had not screamed and shrieked like peacocks, or
furies, I could have thought myself in England.’
‘Alack! that a tumult should seem like home to you, sister,’ said
Eustace gravely.
Then they told how at the ambassador’s chapel they had heard that good
Lady Fanshawe, whom they had known in England, had arrived sick and sad,
after the loss of a young child. They determined, therefore, to steal
away from Notre Dame before the ceremony was over, and go to see whether
anything could be done for her. They could not, however, get out so
quickly as they expected, and they were in the Rue de Marmousets when
they saw surging towards them a tremendous crowd, shouting, screeching,
shrieking, roaring, trying to stop a carriage which was being urged
on with six horses, with the royal guards trying to force their way.
Eustace, afraid of his sister being swept from him, looked for some
escape, but the mob went faster than they could do; and they might soon
have been involved in it and trampled down. There seemed no opening in
the tall houses, when suddenly a little door opened close to them, and
there was a cry of surprise; a hand was put out.
‘You here! Nay, pardon me, Mademoiselle; take my arm.’
Clement Darpent was there. A few steps more, and taking out a small
key, he fitted it into the same little door, and led them into a dark
passage, then up a stair, into a large room, simply furnished, and one
end almost like an oratory. Here, looking anxiously from the window,
was an old lady in a plain black dress and black silk hood, with a white
apron and keys at her girdle.
‘My mother,’ said Clement, ‘this gentleman and lady, M. le Baron de
Ribaumont and Mademoiselle sa soeur, have become involved in this crowd.
They will do us the favour of taking shelter here till the uproar is
over.’
Madame Darpent welcomed them kindly, but with anxious inquiries. Her son
only threw her a word in answer, prayed to be excused, and dashed off
again.
‘Ah! there he is. May he be saved, the good old man,’ cried Madame
Darpent.
And they could see a carriage with four horses containing the
Lieutenant Comminges holding a white-haired old man, in a very shabby
dressing-gown; while soldiers, men, women, boys, all struggled, fought,
and shrieked round it, like the furies let loose. The carriage passed
on, but the noise and struggle continued, and Madame Darpent was soon
intensely anxious about her son.
It seemed that Clement had carried his warnings, and that four or five
of the councillors had taken care to be beyond the walls of Paris; among
them his own father, the Councillor Darpent, who was a prudent man,
and thought it best to be on the right side. The President Broussel, a
good-humoured, simple, hearty old man, was not quite well, and though
he thanked his young friend, he would not believe any such harm was
intended against him as to make him derange his course of medicine.
Thus, when Comminges marched into the house to arrest him, he was
sitting at dinner, eating his bouillon, in dressing-gown and slippers.
His daughter cried out that he was not fit to leave the house. At the
same time, an old maid-servant put her head out at a window, screaming
that her master was going to be carried off.
He was much beloved, and a host of people ran together, trying to break
the carriage and cut the traces. Comminges, seeing that no time was to
be lost, forced the poor old lawyer down to the carriage just as he was,
in his dressing-gown and slippers, and drove off. But the mob thickened
every moment, in spite of the guards, and a very few yards beyond where
they had taken refuge at Madame Darpent’s, a large wooden bench had been
thrown across the street, and the uproar redoubled round it--the yells,
shrieks, and cries ringing all down the road. However, the carriage
passed that, and dashed on, throwing down and crushing people right and
left; so that Madame Darpent was first in terror for her son, and then
would fain have rushed out to help the limping, crying sufferers.
They heard another horrible outcry, but could see no more, except the
fluctuating heads of the throng below them, and loud yells, howls, and
maledictions came to their ears. By and by, however, Clement returned,
having lost his hat in the crowd; with blood on his collar, and with one
of his lace cuffs torn, though he said he was not hurt.
‘They have him!’ he said bitterly; ‘the tyranny has succeeded!’
‘Oh, hush, my son! Take care!’ cried his mother.
‘M. le Baron and I understand one another, Madame,’ he said, smiling.
He went on to tell that the carriage had been overturned on the Quai
des Orfevres, just opposite the hotel of the First President. Comminges
sprang out, sword in hand, drove back the crowd, who would have helped
out Broussel, and shouted for the soldiers, some of whom kept back those
who would have succoured the prisoner with their drawn swords. Clement
himself had been slightly touched, but was forced back in the scuffle;
while the good old man called out to him not to let any one be hurt on
his behalf.
Other soldiers were meantime seizing a passing carriage, and taking out
a poor lady who occupied it. Before it could be brought near, the
raging crowd had brought axes and hacked it to pieces. Comminges and his
soldiers, well-armed, still dragged their victim along till a troop of
the Queen’s guards came up with another carriage, in which the poor old
President was finally carried off.
‘And this is what we have to submit to from a Spaniard and an Italian!’
cried Clement Darpent.
He had come back to reassure his mother and his guests, but the tumult
was raging higher than ever. The crowd had surrounded the Tuileries,
filling the air with shouts of ‘Broussel! Broussel!’ and threatening to
tear down the doors and break in, overwhelming the guards. Eustace and
his host went out again, and presently reported that the Marshal de
Meileraye had been half killed, but had been rescued by the Coadjutor,
who was giving the people all manner of promises. This was verified by
shouts of ‘Vive le Roi!’ and by and by the crowd came past once more,
surrounding the carriage, on the top of which was seated the Coadjutor,
in his violet robes, but with his skull cap away, and his cheek bleeding
from the blow of a stone. He was haranguing, gesticulating, blessing,
doing all in his power to pacify the crowd, and with the hope of the
release of the councilors all was quieting down; and Clement, after
reconnoitering, thought it safe to order the carriage to take home his
guests.
‘No one can describe,’ said my sister, ‘how good and sweet Madame was,
though she looked so like a Puritan dame. Her face was so wonderfully
calm and noble, like some grand old saint in a picture; and it lighted
up so whenever her son came near her, I wanted to ask her blessing! And
I think she gave it inwardly. She curtsied, and would have kissed my
hand, as being only bourgeois, while I was noble; but I told her I would
have no such folly, and I made her give me a good motherly embrace!’
‘I hope she gave you something to eat,’ I said, laughing.
‘Oh, yes; we had an excellent meal. She made us eat before sending us
home, soup, and ragout, and chocolate--excellent chocolate. She had it
brought as soon as possible, because Eustace looked so pale and tired.
Oh, Meg! She is the very best creature I have seen in France. Your
Rambouillets are nothing to her! I hope I may see her often again!’
And while Eustace marveled if this were a passing tumult or the
beginning of a civil war, my most immediate wonder was what my mother
would say to this adventure.