CHAPTER II. THE SEPARATION
CHAPTER III. THE FAMILY COUNCIL
CHAPTER IV. TITHONUS
CHAPTER V. THE CONVENT BIRD
CHAPTER VI. FOULLY COZENED
CHAPTER VII. THE QUEEN’S PASTORAL
CHAPTER VIII. ‘LE BROUILLON’
CHAPTER IX. THE WEDDING WITH CRIMSON FAVOURS
CHAPTER X. MONSIEUR’S BALLET
CHAPTER XI. THE KING’S TRAGEDY
CHAPTER XII. THE PALACE OF SLAUGHTER
CHAPTER XIII. THE BRIDEGROOM’S ARRIVAL
CHAPTER XIV. SWEET HEART
CHAPTER XV. NOTRE-DAME DE BELLAISE
CHAPTER XVI. THE HEARTHS AND THICKETS OF THE BOCAGE
CHAPTER XVII. THE GHOSTS OF THE TEMPLARS
CHAPTER XVIII. THE MOONBEAM
CHAPTER XIX. LA RUE DES TROIS FEES
CHAPTER XX. THE ABBE
CHAPTER XXI. UNDER THE WALNUT-TREE
CHAPTER XXII. DEPARTURE
CHAPTER XXIII. THE EMPTY CRADLE
CHAPTER XXIV. THE GOOD PRIEST OF NISSARD
CHAPTER XXV. THE VELVET COACH
CHAPTER XXVI. THE CHEVALIER’S EXPIATION
CHAPTER XXVII. THE DYING KING
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE ORPHANS OF LA SABLERIE
CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE KING’S NAME
CHAPTER XXX. CAGED IN THE BLACKBIRD’S NEST
CHAPTER XXXI. THE DARK POOL OF THE FUTURE
CHAPTER XXXII. ‘JAM SATIS’
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SCANDAL OF THE SYNOD OF MONTAUBAN
CHAPTER XXXIV. MADAME LA DUCHESSE
CHAPTER XXXV. THE ITALIAN PEDLAR
CHAPTER XXXVI. SPELL AND POTION
CHAPTER XXXVII. BEATING AGAINST THE BARS
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE ENEMY IN PRESENCE
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE PEDLAR’S PREDICTION
CHAPTER XL. THE SANDS OF OLONNE
CHAPTER XLI. OUR LADY OF HOPE
CHAPTER XLII. THE SILVER BULLET
CHAPTER XLIII. LA BAISER D’EUSTACIE
CHAPTER XLIV. THE GALIMAFRE
PREFACE
It is the fashion to call every story controversial that deals with
times when controversy or a war of religion was raging; but it should
be remembered that there are some which only attempt to portray human
feelings as affected by the events that such warfare occasioned. ‘Old
Mortality’ and ‘Woodstock’ are not controversial tales, and the ‘Chaplet
of Pearls’ is so quite as little. It only aims at drawing certain scenes
and certain characters as the convulsions of the sixteenth century may
have affected them, and is, in fact, like all historical romance, the
shaping of the conceptions that the imagination must necessarily form
when dwelling upon the records of history. That faculty which might
be called the passive fancy, and might almost be described in Portia’s
song,--
‘It is engendered in the eyes,
By READING fed--and there it dies,’--
that faculty, I say, has learnt to feed upon character and incident, and
to require that the latter should be effective and exciting. Is it
not reasonable to seek for this in the days when such things were not
infrequent, and did not imply exceptional wickedness or misfortune in
those engaged in them? This seems to me one plea for historical novel,
to which I would add the opportunity that it gives for study of the
times and delineation of characters. Shakespeare’s Henry IV. and Henry
V., Scott’s Louis XI., Manzoni’s Federigo Borromeo, Bulwer’s Harold,
James’s Philip Augustus, are all real contributions to our comprehension
of the men themselves, by calling the chronicles and memoirs
into action. True, the picture cannot be exact, and is sometimes
distorted--nay, sometimes praiseworthy efforts at correctness in the
detail take away whatever might have been lifelike in the outline.
Yet, acknowledging all this, I must still plead for the tales that
presumptuously deal with days gone by, as enabling the young to realize
history vividly--and, what is still more desirable, requiring an effort
of the mind which to read of modern days does not. The details of
Millais’ Inquisition or of his Huguenot may be in error in spite of all
his study and diligence, but they have brought before us for ever the
horrors of the _auto-da-fe_, and the patient, steadfast heroism of the
man who can smile aside his wife’s endeavour to make him tacitly betray
his faith to save his life. Surely it is well, by pen as by picture,
to go back to the past for figures that will stir the heart like these,
even though the details be as incorrect as those of the revolt of Liege
or of La Ferrette in ‘Quentin Durward’ and ‘Anne of Geierstein.’
Scott, however, willfully carved history to suit the purposes of his
story; and in these days we have come to feel that a story must earn
a certain amount of credibility by being in keeping with established
facts, even if striking events have to be sacrificed, and that the order
of time must be preserved. In Shakespeare’s days, or even in Scott’s,
it might have been possible to bring Henry III. and his _mignons_ to due
punishment within the limits of a tale beginning with the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew; but in 1868 the broad outlines of tragedy must be given
up to keep within the bounds of historical verity.
How far this has been done, critics better read than myself must decide.
I have endeavoured to speak fairly, to the best of my ability, of
such classes of persons as fell in with the course of the narrative,
according to such lights as the memoirs of the time afford. The Convent
is scarcely a CLASS portrait, but the condition of it seems to be
justified by hints in the Port Royal memoirs, respecting Maubuisson and
others which Mere Angelique reformed. The intolerance of the ladies
at Montauban is described in Madame Duplessis-Mornay’s life; and if
Berenger’s education and opinions are looked on as not sufficiently
alien from Roman Catholicism, a reference to Froude’s ‘History of Queen
Elizabeth’ will show both that the customs of the country clergy, and
likewise that a broad distinction was made by the better informed among
the French between Calvinism and Protestantism or Lutheranism, in which
they included Anglicanism. The minister Gardon I do not consider as
representing his class. He is a POSSIBILITY modified to serve the
purposes of the story.
Into historical matters, however, I have only entered so far as my
story became involved with them. And here I have to apologize for a
few blunders, detected too late for alteration even in the volumes. Sir
Francis Walsingham was a young rising statesman in 1572, instead of the
elderly sage he is represented; his daughter Frances was a mere infant,
and Sir Philip Sidney was not knighted till much later. For the rest,
I have tried to show the scenes that shaped themselves before me as
carefully as I could; though of course they must not be a presentiment
of the times themselves, but of my notion of them.
C. M. Yonge
November 14th, 1868
THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS
or
THE WHITE AND BLACK RIBAUMONT
CHAPTER I. THE BRIDAL OF THE WHITE AND BLACK
Small was the ring, and small in truth the finger:
What then? the faith was large that dropped it down.
Aubrey De Vere, INFANT BRIDAL
Setting aside the consideration of the risk, the baby-weddings of the
Middle Ages must have been very pretty sights.
So the Court of France thought the bridal of Henri Beranger Eustache de
Ribaumont and of Marie Eustacie Rosalie de Rebaumont du Nid-de-Merle,
when, amid the festivals that accompanied the signature of the treaty
of Cateau-Cabresis, good-natured King Henri II. presided merrily at the
union of the little pair, whose unite ages did not reach ten years.
There they stood under the portal of Notre-Dame, the little bridegroom
in a white velvet coat, with puffed sleeves, slashed with scarlet satin,
as were the short, also puffed breeches meeting his long white knitted
silk stockings some way above the knee; large scarlet rosettes were in
his white shoes, a scarlet knot adorned his little sword, and his velvet
cap of the same colour bore a long white plume, and was encircled by a
row of pearls of priceless value. They are no other than that garland
of pearls which, after a night of personal combat before the walls of
Calais, Edward III. of England took from his helmet and presented to Sir
Eustache de Ribaumont, a knight of Picardy, bidding him say everywhere
that it was a gift from the King of England to the bravest of knights.
The precious heirlooms were scarcely held with the respect due to an
ornament so acquired. The manly garb for the first time assumed by his
sturdy legs, and the possession of the little sword, were evidently the
most interesting parts of the affair to the youthful husband, who seemed
to find in them his only solace for the weary length of the ceremony.
He was a fine, handsome little fellow, fair and rosy, with bright blue
eyes, and hair like shining flax, unusually tall and strong-limbed for
his age; and as he gave his hand to his little bride, and walked with
her under a canopy up to kneel at the High Altar, for the marriage
blessing and the mass, they looked like a full-grown couple seen through
a diminishing-glass.
The little bride was perhaps a less beautiful child, but she had a
splendid pair of black eyes, and a sweet little mouth, both set into
the uncomprehending solemnity of baby gravity and contentment in fine
clothes. In accordance with the vow indicated by her name of Marie, her
dress was white and blue, turquoise forget-me-nots bound the little lace
veil on her dark chestnut hair, the bosom of her white satin dress was
sprinkled with the same azure jewel, and turquoises bordered every seam
of the sweeping skirt with a train befitting a count’s daughter, and
meandered in gorgeous constellations round the hem. The little thing
lisped her own vows forth without much notion of their sense, and indeed
was sometimes prompted by her bridesmaid cousin, a pretty little girl
a year older, who thrust in her assistance so glibly that the King, as
well as others of the spectators, laughed, and observed that she would
get herself married to the boy instead of her cousin.
There was, however, to be no doubt nor mistake about Beranger and
Eustacie de Ribaumont being man and wife. Every ceremony, religious or
domestic, that could render a marriage valid, was gone through with real
earnestness, although with infinite gaiety, on the part of the court.
Much depended on their union, and the reconcilement of the two branches
of the family had long been a favourite scheme of King Henri II.
Both alike were descended from Anselme de Ribaumont, renowned in the
first Crusade, and from the brave Picard who had received the pearls;
but, in the miserable anarchy of Charles VI.’s reign, the elder brother
had been on the Burgundian side--like most of the other nobles of
Picardy--and had thus been brought into the English camp, where,
regarding Henry V. as lawfully appointed to the succession, and much
admiring him and his brother Nedford, he had become an ardent supporter
of the English claim. He had married an English lady, and had received
the grant if the castle of Leurre in Normandy by way of compensation for
his ancestral one of Ribaumont in Picardy, which had been declared to be
forfeited by his treason, and seized by his brother.
This brother had always been an Armagnac, and had risen and thriven with
his party,--before the final peace between France and England obliged
the elder line to submit to Charles VII. Since that time there had been
a perpetual contention as to the restitution of Chateau Ribaumont, a
strife which under Louis XI. had become an endless lawsuit; and in
the days of dueling had occasioned a good many insults and private
encounters. The younger branch, or Black Ribaumonts, had received a
grant from Louis XI. of the lands of Nid-de-Merle, belonging to an
unfortunate Angevin noble, who had fallen under the royal displeasure,
and they had enjoyed court favour up to the present generation, when
Henri II., either from opposition to his father, instinct for honesty,
or both, had become a warm friend to the gay and brilliant young Baron
de Ribaumont, head of the white or elder branch of the family.
The family contention seemed likely to wear out of its own accord,
for the Count de Ribaumont was an elderly and childless man, and his
brother, the Chevalier de Ribaumont, was, according to the usual lot
of French juniors, a bachelor, so that it was expected that the whole
inheritance would centre upon the elder family. However, to the general
surprise, the Chevalier late in life married, and became the father of a
son and daughter; but soon after calculations were still more thrown out
by the birth of a little daughter in the old age of the Count.
Almost from the hour in which her sex was announced, the King had
promised the Baron de Ribaumont that she should be the wife of his young
son, and that all the possessions of the house should be settled upon
the little couple, engaging to provide for the Chevalier’s disappointed
heir in some commandery of a religious order of knighthood.
The Baron’s wife was English. He had, when on a visit to his English
kindred, entirely turned the head of the lovely Annora Walwyn, and
finding that her father, one of the gravest of Tudor statesmen, would
not hear of her breaking her engagement to the honest Dorset squire
Marmaduke Thistlewood, he had carried her off by a stolen marriage and
_coup de main_, which, as her beauty, rank, and inheritance were all
considerable, had won him great reputation at the gay court of Henri II.
Infants as the boy and girl were, the King had hurried on their marriage
to secure its taking place in the lifetime of the Count. The Countess
had died soon after the birth of the little girl, and if the arrangement
were to take effect at all, it must be before she should fall under the
guardianship of her uncle, the Chevalier. Therefore the King had caused
her to be brought up from the cottage in Anjou, where she had been
nursed, and in person superintended the brilliant wedding. He himself
led off the dance with the tiny bride, conducting her through its mazes
with fatherly kindliness and condescension; but Queen Catherine, who was
strongly in the interests of the Angevin branch, and had always detested
the Baron as her husband’s intimate, excused herself from dancing with
the bridegroom. He therefore fell to the share of the Dauphiness Queen
of Scots, a lovely, bright-eyed, laughing girl, who so completely
fascinated the little fellow, that he convulsed the court by observing
that he should not have objected to be married to some one like her,
instead of a little baby like Eustacie.
Amid all the mirth, it was not only the Chevalier and the Queen who bore
displeased looks. In truth, both were too great adepts in court life
to let their dissatisfaction appear. The gloomiest face was that of him
whose triumph it was--the bridegroom’s father, the Baron de Ribaumont.
He had suffered severely from the sickness that prevailed in St.
Quentin, when in the last August the Admiral de Coligny had been
besieged there by the Spaniards, and all agreed that he had never been
the same man since, either in health or in demeanour. When he came back
from his captivity and found the King bent on crowning his return by
the marriage of the children, he had hung back, spoken of scruples about
such unconscious vows, and had finally only consented under stress of
the personal friendship of the King, and on condition that he and his
wife should at once have the sole custody of the little bride. Even then
he moved about the gay scene with so distressed and morose an air that
he was evidently either under the influence of a scruple of conscience
or of a foreboding of evil.
No one doubted that it had been the latter, when, three days later,
Henri II., in the prime of his strength and height of his spirits,
encountered young Des Lorges in the lists, received the splinter of a
lance in his eye, and died two days afterwards.
No sooner were his obsequies over than the Baron de Ribaumont set off
with his wife and the little bridal pair for his castle of Leurre, in
Normandy, nor was he ever seen at court again.