The sun shone brightly on the roof of the Cathedral, a fresh odour of
lilacs came up from the bushes in the garden of the Bishop. Angelique
smiled, as she stood there, dazzled, and as if bathed in the springtide.
Then, starting as if suddenly awakened from sleep, she said:
“Father, I have no more gold thread for my work.”
Hubert, who had just finished pricking the tracing of the pattern of a
cope, went to get a skein from the case of drawers, cut it, tapered
off the two ends by scratching the gold which covered the silk, and he
brought it to her rolled up in parchment.
“Is that all you need?”
“Yes, thanks.”
With a quick glance she had assured herself that nothing more was
wanting; the needles were supplied with the different golds, the red,
the green, and the blue; there were spools of every shade of silk; the
spangles were ready; and the twisted wires for the gold lace were in the
crown of a hat which served as a box, with the long fine needles, the
steel pincers, the thimbles, the scissors, and the ball of wax. All
these were on the frame even, or on the material stretched therein,
which was protected by a thick brown paper.
She had threaded a needle with the gold thread. But at the first stitch
it broke, and she was obliged to thread it again, breaking off tiny
bits of the gold, which she threw immediately into the pasteboard
waste-basket which was near her.
“Now at last I am ready,” she said, as she finished her first stitch.
Perfect silence followed. Hubert was preparing to stretch some material
on another frame. He had placed the two heavy ends on the chantlate and
the trestle directly opposite in such a way as to take lengthwise the
red silk of the cope, the breadths of which Hubertine had just stitched
together, and fitting the laths into the mortice of the beams, he
fastened them with four little nails. Then, after smoothing the material
many times from right to left, he finished stretching it and tacked on
the nails. To assure himself that it was thoroughly tight and firm, he
tapped on the cloth with his fingers and it sounded like a drum.
Angelique had become a most skilful worker, and the Huberts were
astonished at her cleverness and taste. In addition to what they had
taught her, she carried into all she did her personal enthusiasm, which
gave life to flowers and faith to symbols. Under her hands, silk and
gold seemed animated; the smaller ornaments were full of mystic meaning;
she gave herself up to it entirely, with her imagination constantly
active and her firm belief in the infinitude of the invisible world.
The Diocese of Beaumont had been so charmed with certain pieces of her
embroidery, that a clergyman who was an archaeologist, and another who
was an admirer of pictures, had come to see her, and were in raptures
before her Virgins, which they compared to the simple gracious figures
of the earliest masters. There was the same sincerity, the same
sentiment of the beyond, as if encircled in the minutest perfection of
detail. She had the real gift of design, a miraculous one indeed, which,
without a teacher, with nothing but her evening studies by lamplight,
enabled her often to correct her models, to deviate entirely from them,
and to follow her own fancies, creating beautiful things with the point
of her needle. So the Huberts, who had always insisted that a thorough
knowledge of the science of drawing was necessary to make a good
embroiderer, were obliged to yield before her, notwithstanding their
long experience. And, little by little, they modestly withdrew into the
background, becoming simply her aids, surrendering to her all the most
elaborate work, the under part of which they prepared for her.
From one end of the year to the other, what brilliant and sacred marvels
passed through her hands! She was always occupied with silks, satins,
velvets, or cloths of gold or silver. She embroidered chasubles, stoles,
maniples, copes, dalmatics, mitres, banners, and veils for the chalice
and the pyx. But, above all, their orders for chasubles never failed,
and they worked constantly at those vestments, with their five colours:
the white, for Confessors and Virgins; the red, for Apostles and
Martyrs; the black, for the days of fasting and for the dead; the
violet, for the Innocents; and the green for fête-days. Gold was also
often used in place of white or of green. The same symbols were always
in the centre of the Cross: the monograms of Jesus and of the Virgin
Mary, the triangle surrounded with rays, the lamb, the pelican, the
dove, a chalice, a monstrance, and a bleeding heart pierced with thorns;
while higher up and on the arms were designs, or flowers, all the
ornamentation being in the ancient style, and all the flora in large
blossoms, like anemones, tulips, peonies, pomegranates, or hortensias.
No season passed in which she did not remake the grapes and thorns
symbolic, putting silver on black, and gold on red. For the most costly
vestments, she varied the pictures of the heads of saints, having, as a
central design, the Annunciation, the Last Supper, or the Crucifixion.
Sometimes the orfreys were worked on the original material itself; at
others, she applied bands of silk or satin on brocades of gold cloth, or
of velvet. And all this efflorescence of sacred splendour was created,
little by little, by her deft fingers. At this moment the vestment on
which Angelique was at work was a chasuble of white satin, the cross
of which was made by a sheaf of golden lilies intertwined with bright
roses, in various shades of silk. In the centre, in a wreath of little
roses of dead gold, was the monogram of the Blessed Virgin, in red and
green gold, with a great variety of ornaments.
For an hour, during which she skilfully finished the little roses, the
silence had not been broken even by a single word. But her thread broke
again, and she re-threaded her needle by feeling carefully under the
frame, as only an adroit person can do. Then, as she raised her head,
she again inhaled with satisfaction the pure, fresh air that came in
from the garden.
“Ah!” she said softly, “how beautiful it was yesterday! The sunshine is
always perfect.”
Hubertine shook her head as she stopped to wax her thread.
“As for me, I am so wearied, it seems as if I had no arms, and it tires
me to work. But that is not strange, for I so seldom go out, and am no
longer young and strong, as you are at sixteen.”
Angelique had reseated herself and resumed her work. She prepared the
lilies by sewing bits of vellum on certain places that had been marked,
so as to give them relief, but the flowers themselves were not to be
made until later, for fear the gold be tarnished were the hands moved
much over it.
Hubert, who, having finished arranging the material in its frame,
was about drawing with pumice the pattern of the cope, joined in the
conversation and said: “These first warm days of spring are sure to give
me a terrible headache.”
Angelique’s eyes seemed to be vaguely lost in the rays which now fell
upon one of the flying buttresses of the church, as she dreamily added:
“Oh no, father, I do not think so. One day in the lively air, like
yesterday, does me a world of good.”
Having finished the little golden leaves, she began one of the large
roses, near the lilies. Already she had threaded several needles with
the silks required, and she embroidered in stitches varying in length,
according to the natural position and movement of the petals, and
notwithstanding the extreme delicacy and absorbing nature of this work,
the recollections of the previous day, which she lived over again in
thought and in silence, now came to her lips, and crowded so closely
upon each other that she no longer tried to keep them back. So she
talked of their setting out upon their expedition, of the beautiful
fields they crossed, of their lunch over there in the ruins of
Hautecœur, upon the flagstones of a little room whose tumble-down walls
towered far above the Ligneul, which rolled gently among the willows
fifty yards below them.
She was enthusiastic over these crumbling ruins, and the scattered
blocks of stone among the brambles, which showed how enormous the
colossal structure must have been as, when first built, it commanded
the two valleys. The donjon remained, nearly two hundred feet in height,
discoloured, cracked, but nevertheless firm, upon its foundation pillars
fifteen feet thick. Two of its towers had also resisted the attacks
of Time--that of Charlemagne and that of David--united by a heavy wall
almost intact. In the interior, the chapel, the court-room, and certain
chambers were still easily recognised; and all this appeared to have
been built by giants, for the steps of the stairways, the sills of the
windows, and the branches on the terraces, were all on a scale far out
of proportion for the generation of to-day. It was, in fact, quite a
little fortified city. Five hundred men could have sustained there a
siege of thirty months without suffering from want of ammunition or of
provisions. For two centuries the bricks of the lowest story had been
disjointed by the wild roses; lilacs and laburnums covered with blossoms
the rubbish of the fallen ceilings; a plane-tree had even grown up in
the fireplace of the guardroom. But when, at sunset, the outline of the
donjon cast its long shadow over three leagues of cultivated ground,
and the colossal Château seemed to be rebuilt in the evening mists, one
still felt the great strength, and the old sovereignty, which had made
of it so impregnable a fortress that even the kings of France trembled
before it.
“And I am sure,” continued Angelique, “that it is inhabited by the souls
of the dead, who return at night. All kinds of noises are heard there;
in every direction are monsters who look at you, and when I turned round
as we were coming away, I saw great white figures fluttering above the
wall. But, mother, you know all the history of the castle, do you not?”
Hubertine replied, as she smiled in an amused way: “Oh! as for ghosts, I
have never seen any of them myself.”
But in reality, she remembered perfectly the history, which she had read
long ago, and to satisfy the eager questionings of the young girl, she
was obliged to relate it over again.
The land belonged to the Bishopric of Rheims, since the days of Saint
Remi, who had received it from Clovis.
An archbishop, Severin, in the early years of the tenth century, had
erected at Hautecœur a fortress to defend the country against the
Normans, who were coming up the river Oise, into which the Ligneul
flows.
In the following century a successor of Severin gave it in fief to
Norbert, a younger son of the house of Normandy, in consideration of an
annual quit-rent of sixty sous, and on the condition that the city of
Beaumont and its church should remain free and unincumbered. It was in
this way that Norbert I. became the head of the Marquesses of Hautecœur,
whose famous line from that date became so well known in history. Hervé
IV., excommunicated twice for his robbery of ecclesiastical property,
became a noted highwayman, who killed, on a certain occasion, with his
own hands, thirty citizens, and his tower was razed to the ground by
Louis le Gros, against whom he had dared to declare war. Raoul I., who
went to the Crusades with Philip Augustus, perished before Saint Jean
d’Acre, having been pierced through the heart by a lance. But the most
illustrious of the race was John V, the Great, who, in 1225, rebuilt the
fortress, finishing in less than five years this formidable Château of
Hautecœur, under whose shelter he, for a moment, dreamed of aspiring
to the throne of France, and after having escaped from being killed in
twenty battles, he at last died quietly in his bed, brother-in-law to
the King of Scotland. Then came Felician III, who made a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem barefooted; Hervé VII., who asserted his claims to the throne
of Scotland; and still many others, noble and powerful in their day
and generation, down to Jean IX., who, under Mazarin, had the grief of
assisting at the dismantling of the castle. After a desperate siege, the
vaults of the towers and of the donjon were blown up with powder, and
the different constructions were set on fire; where Charles VI had been
sent to rest, and to turn his attention from his vagaries, and where,
nearly two hundred years later, Henri IV. had passed a week as Gabrielle
D’Estress. Thenceforth, all these royal souvenirs had passed into
oblivion.
Angelique, without stopping the movement of her needle, listened
eagerly, as if the vision of these past grandeurs rose up from her
frame, in proportion as the rose grew there in its delicate life
of colour. Her ignorance of general history enlarged facts, and she
received them as if they were the basis of a marvellous legend. She
trembled with delight, and, transported by her faith, it seemed as if
the reconstructed Château mounted to the very gates of heaven, and the
Hautecœurs were cousins to the Virgin Mary.
When there was a pause in the recital she asked, “Is not our new Bishop
Monseigneur d’Hautecœur, a descendant of this noted family?”
Hubertine replied that Monseigneur must belong to the younger branch of
the family, as the elder branch had been extinct for a very long time.
It was, indeed, a most singular return, as for centuries the Marquesses
of Hautecœur and the clergy of Beaumont had been hostile to each
other. Towards 1150 an abbot undertook to build a church, with no other
resources than those of his Order; so his funds soon gave out, when the
edifice was no higher than the arches of the side chapels, and they were
obliged to cover the nave with a wooden roof. Eighty years passed, and
Jean V. came to rebuild the Château, when he gave three hundred thousand
pounds, which, added to other sums, enabled the work on the church to be
continued. The nave was finished, but the two towers and the great front
were terminated much later, towards 1430, in the full fifteenth century.
To recompense Jean V. for his liberality, the clergy accorded to him,
for himself and his descendants, the right of burial in a chapel of the
apse, consecrated to St. George, and which, since that time, had been
called the Chapel Hautecœur. But these good terms were not of long
duration. The freedom of Beaumont was put in constant peril by the
Château, and there were continual hostilities on the questions of
tribute and of precedence. One especially, the right of paying toll,
which the nobles demanded for the navigation of the Ligneul, perpetuated
the quarrels. Then it was that the great prosperity of the lower town
began, with its manufacturing of fine linen and lace, and from this
epoch the fortune of Beaumont increased daily, while that of Hautecœur
diminished, until the time when the castle was dismantled and the church
triumphed. Louis XIV. made of it a cathedral, a bishop’s palace was
built in the old enclosure of the monks, and, by a singular chain of
circumstances, to-day a member of the family of Hautecœur had returned
as a bishop to command the clergy, who, always powerful, had conquered
his ancestors, after a contest of four hundred years.
“But,” said Angelique, “Monseigneur has been married, and has not he a
son at least twenty years of age?”
Hubertine had taken up the shears to remodel one of the pieces of
vellum.
“Yes,” she replied, “the Abbot Cornille told me the whole story, and it
is a very sad history. When but twenty years of age, Monseigneur was a
captain under Charles X. In 1830, when only four-and-twenty, he resigned
his position in the army, and it is said that from that time until he
was forty years of age he led an adventurous life, travelling everywhere
and having many strange experiences. At last, one evening, he met,
at the house of a friend in the country, the daughter of the Count de
Valencay, Mademoiselle Pauline, very wealthy, marvellously beautiful,
and scarcely nineteen years of age, twenty-two years younger than
himself. He fell violently in love with her, and, as she returned his
affection, there was no reason why the marriage should not take place
at once. He then bought the ruins of Hautecœur for a mere song--ten
thousand francs, I believe--with the intention of repairing the Château
and installing his wife therein when all would be in order and in
readiness to receive her. In the meanwhile they went to live on one of
his family estates in Anjou, scarcely seeing any of their friends, and
finding in their united happiness the days all too short. But, alas! at
the end of a year Pauline had a son and died.”
Hubert, who was still occupied with marking out his pattern, raised
his head, showing a very pale face as he said in a low voice: “Oh! the
unhappy man!”
“It was said that he himself almost died from his great grief,”
continued Hubertine. “At all events, a fortnight later he entered into
Holy Orders, and soon became a priest. That was twenty years ago, and
now he is a bishop. But I have also been told that during all this time
he has refused to see his son, the child whose birth cost the life of
its mother. He had placed him with an uncle of his wife’s, an old abbot,
not wishing even to hear of him, and trying to forget his existence. One
day a picture of the boy was sent him, but in looking at it he found
so strong a resemblance to his beloved dead that he fell on the floor
unconscious and stiff, as if he had received a blow from a hammer. . . .
Now age and prayer have helped to soften his deep grief, for yesterday
the good Father Cornille told me that Monseigneur had just decided to
send for his son to come to him.”
Angelique, having finished her rose, so fresh and natural that perfume
seemed to be exhaled from it, looked again through the window into the
sunny garden, and, as if in a reverie, she said in a low voice: “The son
of Monseigneur!”
Hubertine continued her story.
“It seems that the young man is handsome as a god, and his father wished
him to be educated for the priesthood. But the old abbot would not
consent to that, saying that the youth had not the slightest inclination
in that direction. And then, to crown all, his wealth, it is said, is
enormous. Two million pounds sterling! Yes, indeed! His mother left
him a tenth of that sum, which was invested in land in Paris, where the
increase in the price of real estate has been so great, that to-day it
represents fifty millions of francs. In short, rich as a king!”
“Rich as a king, beautiful as a god!” repeated Angelique unconsciously,
in her dreamy voice.
And with one hand she mechanically took from the frame a bobbin wound
with gold thread, in order to make the open-work centre of one of the
large lilies. After having loosened the end from the point of the reel,
she fastened it with a double stitch of silk to the edge of the vellum
which was to give a thickness to the embroidery. Then, continuing her
work, she said again, without finishing her thought, which seemed lost
in the vagueness of its desire, “Oh! as for me, what I would like, that
which I would like above all else----”
The silence fell again, deep and profound, broken only by the dull sound
of chanting which came from the church. Hubert arranged his design by
repassing with a little brush all the perforated lines of the drawing,
and thus the ornamentation of the cope appeared in white on the red
silk. It was he who first resumed speaking.
“Ah! those ancient days were magnificent! Noblemen then wore costumes
weighted with embroidery. At Lyons, material was sometimes sold for as
much as six hundred francs an ell. One ought to read the by-laws and
regulations of the Guild of Master Workmen, where it is laid down that
‘The embroiderers of the King have always the right to summon, by armed
force if necessary, the workmen of other masters.’ . . . And then we
had coats of arms, too! Azure, a fesse engrailed or, between three
fleurs-de-lys of the same, two of them being near the top and the third
in the point. Ah! it was indeed beautiful in the days of long ago!”
He stopped a moment, tapping the frame with his fingers to shake off the
dust. Then he continued:
“At Beaumont they still have a legend about the Hautecœurs, which my
mother often related to me when I was a child. . . . A frightful plague
ravaged the town, and half of the inhabitants had already fallen victims
to it, when Jean V., he who had rebuilt the fortress, perceived that God
had given him the power to contend against the scourge. Then he went on
foot to the houses of the sick, fell on his knees, kissed them, and as
soon as his lips had touched them, while he said, ‘If God is willing,
I wish it,’ the sufferers were healed. And lo! that is why these words
have remained the device of the Hautecœurs, who all have since that
day been able to cure the plague. . . . Ah! what a proud race of men!
A noble dynasty! Monseigneur himself is called Jean XII., and the first
name of his son must also be followed by a number, like that of a
prince.”
He stopped. Each one of his words lulled and prolonged the reverie of
Angelique. She continued, in a half-singing tone: “Oh! what I wish for
myself! That which I would like above all else----”
Holding the bobbin, without touching the thread, she twisted the gold by
moving it from left to right alternately on the vellum, fastening it at
each turn with a stitch in silk. Little by little the great golden lily
blossomed out.
Soon she continued: “Yes, what I would like above all would be to marry
a prince--a prince whom I had never seen; who would come towards sunset,
just before the waning daylight, and would take me by the hand and lead
me to his palace. And I should wish him to be very handsome, as well as
very rich! Yes, the most beautiful and the wealthiest man that had ever
been seen on the earth! He should have superb horses that I could hear
neighing under my windows, and jewels which he would pour in streams
into my lap, and gold that would fall from my hands in a deluge when I
opened them. And what I wish still further is, that this prince of
mine should love me to distraction, so that I might also love him
desperately. We would then remain very young, very good, and very noble,
for ever!”
Hubert, leaving his work, had approached her smilingly; whilst
Hubertine, in a friendly way, shook her finger at the young girl.
“Oh, what a vain little creature! Ah! ambitious child, you are quite
incorrigible. Now, you are quite beside yourself with your need of being
a queen. At all events such a dream is much better than to steal sugar
and to be impertinent. But really, you must not indulge in such fancies.
It is the Evil One who prompts them, and it is pride that speaks, as
well as passion.”
Gay and candid, Angelique looked her in the face as she said: “But
mother, mother mine, what are you saying? Is it, then, a sin to love
that which is rich and beautiful? I love it because it is rich and
beautiful, and so cheers my heart and soul. A beautiful object brightens
everything that is near it, and helps one to live, as the sun does. You
know very well that I am not selfish. Money? Oh! you would see what a
good use I would make of it, if only I had it in abundance! I would rain
it over the town; it should be scattered among the miserable. Think what
a blessing it would be to have no more poverty! In the first place,
as for you and my father, I would give you everything. You should be
dressed in robes and garments of brocades, like the lords and ladies of
the olden time.”
Hubertine shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “It is ridiculous,” she
said. “But, my dear child, you must remember that you are poor, and that
you have not a penny for your marriage-portion. How can you, then, for a
moment dream of a prince? Are you, then, so desirous to marry a prince?”
“Why should not I wish to marry such a man?” And she looked quite
amazed, as she continued: “Marry him? Of course I would do so. Since he
would have plenty of money, what difference would it make if I had none?
I should owe everything to him, and on that very account I should love
him all the more deeply.”
This victorious reasoning enchanted Hubert, who seemed carried above the
earth by Angelique’s enthusiasm. He would willingly have accompanied her
on the wings of a cloud to the regions of fancy.
“She is right,” he exclaimed.
But his wife glanced at him reprovingly. She became quite stern.
“My child, you will think differently later on, when you know life
better.”
“Life?--but I know it already.”
“How is it possible for you to know it? You are too young; you are
ignorant of evil. Yet evil exists and is very powerful.”
“Evil--evil?”
Angelique repeated the word very slowly, as if to penetrate its meaning.
And in her pure eyes was a look of innocent surprise. Evil? She knew all
about it, for she had read of it in the “Golden Legend.” Was not
evil Satan himself? And had not she seen how, although he constantly
reappeared, he was always overthrown? After every battle he remained
crushed to earth, thoroughly conquered, and in a most pitiable state.
“Evil? Ah, mother mine, if you knew how little I fear it! It is only
necessary once to conquer it and afterwards life is all happiness.”
Hubertine appeared troubled and looked anxious.
“You will make me almost regret having brought you up in this house,
alone with us two, and away from the world as it were. I am really
afraid that some day we shall regret having kept you in such complete
ignorance of the realities of life. What Paradise are you looking for?
What is your idea of the world?”
A look of hope brightened the face of the young girl, while, bending
forward, she still moved the bobbin back and forth with a continuous,
even motion.
“You then really think, mother, that I am very foolish, do you not? This
world is full of brave people. When one is honest and industrious, one
is always rewarded. I know also that there are some bad people, but they
do not count. We do not associate with them, and they are soon punished
for their misdeeds. And then, you see, as for the world, it produces on
me, from a distance, the effect of a great garden; yes, of an immense
park, all filled with flowers and with sunshine. It is such a blessing
to live, and life is so sweet that it cannot be bad.”
She grew excited, as if intoxicated by the brightness of the silks and
the gold threads she manipulated so well with her skilful fingers.
“Happiness is a very simple thing. We are happy, are we not? All three
of us? And why? Simply because we love each other. Then, after all, it
is no more difficult than that; it is only necessary to love and to
be loved. So, you see, when the one I expect really comes, we shall
recognise each other immediately. It is true I have not yet seen him,
but I know exactly what he ought to be. He will enter here and will say:
‘I have come in search of you.’ And I shall reply: ‘I expected you, and
will go with you.’ He will take me with him, and our future will be at
once decided upon. He will go into a palace, where all the furniture
will be of gold, encrusted in diamonds. Oh, it is all very simple!”
“You are crazy; so do not talk any more,” interrupted Hubertine, coldly.
And seeing that the young girl was still excited, and ready to continue
to indulge her fancies, she continued to reprove her.
“I beg you to say no more, for you absolutely make me tremble. Unhappy
child! When we really marry you to some poor mortal you will be crushed,
as you fall to earth from these heights of the imagination. Happiness,
for the greater part of the world, consists in humility and obedience.”
Angelique continued to smile with an almost obstinate tranquillity.
“I expect him, and he will come.”
“But she is right,” exclaimed Hubert, again carried away by her
enthusiasm. “Why need you scold her? She is certainly pretty, and dainty
enough for a king. Stranger things than that have happened, and who
knows what may come?”
Sadly Hubertine looked at him with her calm eyes.
“Do not encourage her to do wrong, my dear. You know, better than
anyone, what it costs to follow too much the impulses of one’s heart.”
He turned deadly pale, and great tears came to the edge of his eyelids.
She immediately repented of having reproved him, and rose to offer him
her hands. But gently disengaging himself, he said, stammeringly:
“No, no, my dear; I was wrong. Angelique, do you understand me? You must
always listen to your mother. She alone is wise, and we are both of us
very foolish. I am wrong; yes, I acknowledge it.”
Too disturbed to sit down, leaving the cope upon which he had been
working, he occupied himself in pasting a banner that was finished,
although still in its frame. After having taken the pot of Flemish glue
from the chest of drawers, he moistened with a brush the underside of
the material, to make the embroidery firmer. His lips still trembled,
and he remained quiet.
But if Angelique, in her obedience, was also still, she allowed her
thoughts to follow their course, and her fancies mounted higher and
still higher. She showed it in every feature--in her mouth, that ecstasy
had half opened, as well as in her eyes, where the infinite depth of her
visions seemed reflected. Now, this dream of a poor girl, she wove it
into the golden embroidery. It was for this unknown hero that, little
by little, there seemed to grow on the white satin the beautiful great
lilies, and the roses, and the monogram of the Blessed Virgin. The stems
of the lilies had all the gracious pointings of a jet of light, whilst
the long slender leaves, made of spangles, each one being sewed on with
gold twist, fell in a shower of stars. In the centre, the initials of
Mary were like the dazzling of a relief in massive gold, a marvellous
blending of lacework and of embossing, or goffering, which burnt like
the glory of a tabernacle in the mystic fire of its rays. And the roses
of delicately-coloured silks seemed real, and the whole chasuble was
resplendent in its whiteness of satin, which appeared covered almost
miraculously with its golden blossoms.
After a long silence, Angelique, whose cheeks were flushed by the blood
which mounted into them from her excitement, raised her head, and,
looking at Hubertine, said again, a little maliciously:
“I expect him, and he will come.”
It was absurd for her thus to give loose reins to her imagination. But
she was willful. She was convinced in her own mind that everything would
come to pass, eventually, as she wished it might. Nothing could weaken
her happy conviction.
“Mother,” she added, “why do you not believe me, since I assure you it
must be as I say?”
Hubertine shrugged her shoulders, and concluded the best thing for her
to do was to tease her.
“But I thought, my child, that you never intended being married. Your
saints, who seem to have turned your head, they led single lives. Rather
than do otherwise they converted their lovers, ran away from their
homes, and were put to death.”
The young girl listened and was confused. But soon she laughed merrily.
Her perfect health, and all her love of life, rang out in this sonorous
gaiety. “The histories of the saints! But that was ages ago! Times have
entirely changed since then. God having so completely triumphed, no
longer demands that anyone should die for Him.”
When reading the Legend, it was the marvels which fascinated her, not
the contempt of the world and the desire for death. She added: “Most
certainly I expect to be married; to love and to be loved, and thus be
very happy.”
“Be careful, my dear,” said Hubertine, continuing to tease her. “You
will make your guardian angel, Saint Agnes, weep. Do not you know that
she refused the son of the Governor, and preferred to die, that she
might be wedded to Jesus?”
The great clock of the belfry began to strike; numbers of sparrows flew
down from an enormous ivy-plant which framed one of the windows of
the apse. In the workroom, Hubert, still silent, had just hung up the
banner, moist from the glue, that it might dry, on one of the great iron
hooks fastened to the wall.
The sun in the course of the morning had lightened up different parts
of the room, and now it shone brightly upon the old tools--the diligent,
the wicker winder, and the brass chandelier--and as its rays fell upon
the two workers, the frame at which they were seated seemed almost
on fire, with its bands polished by use, and with the various objects
placed upon it, the reels of gold cord, the spangles, and the bobbins of
silk.
Then, in this soft, charming air of spring, Angelique looked at
the beautiful symbolic lily she had just finished. Opening wide her
ingenuous eyes, she replied, with an air of confiding happiness, to
Hubertine’s last remark in regard to the child-martyr, Saint Agnes:
“Ah, yes! But it was Jesus who wished it to be so.”