Young knight, whatever that dost armes professe,
And through long labours huntest after fame,
Beware of fraud, beware of ficklenesse,
In choice and change of thy beloved dame.
Spenser, FAERY QUEENE
Berenger’ mind was relieved, even while his vanity was mortified, when
the Chevalier and his son came the next day to bring him the formal
letter requesting the Pope’s annulment of his marriage. After he had
signed it, it was to be taken to Eustacie, and so soon as he should
attain his twenty-first year he was to dispose of Chateau Leurre, as
well as of his claim to the ancestral castle in Picardy, to his cousin
Narcisse, and thus become entirely free to transfer his allegiance to
the Queen of England.
It was a very good thing--that he well knew; and he had a strong sense
of virtue and obedience, as he formed with his pen the words in all
their fullness, Henri Beranger Eustache, Baron de Ribaumont et Seigneur
de Leurre. He could not help wondering whether the lady who looked at
him so admiringly really preferred such a mean-looking little fop as
Narcisse, whether she were afraid of his English home and breeding, or
whether all this open coquetry were really the court manners of
ladies towards gentlemen, and he had been an absolute simpleton to be
flattered. Any way, she would have been a most undesirable wife, and
he was well quit of her; but he did feel a certain lurking desire that,
since the bonds were cut and he was no longer in danger from her, he
might see her again, carry home a mental inventory of the splendid
beauties he had renounced, and decide what was the motive that actuated
her in rejecting his own handsome self. Meantime, he proceeded to enjoy
the amusements and advantage of his sojourn at Paris, of which by no
means the least was the society of Philip Sidney, and the charm his
brilliant genius imparted to every pursuit they shared. Books at the
University, fencing and dancing from the best professors, Italian
poetry, French sonnets, Latin epigrams; nothing came amiss to Sidney,
the flower of English youth: and Berenger had taste, intelligence, and
cultivation enough to enter into all in which Sidney led the way. The
good tutor, after all his miseries on the journey, was delighted to
write to Lord Walwyn, that, far from being a risk and temptation, this
visit was a school in all that was virtuous and comely.
If the good man had any cause of dissatisfaction, it was with the
Calvinistic tendencies of the Ambassador’s household. Walsingham
was always on the Puritanical side of Elizabeth’s court, and such an
atmosphere as that of Paris, where the Roman Catholic system was at that
time showing more corruption than it has ever done before or since in
any other place, naturally threw him into sympathy with the Reformed.
The reaction that half a century later filled the Gallican Church with
saintliness had not set in; her ecclesiastics were the tools of a wicked
and bloodthirsty court, who hated virtue as much as schism in the men
whom they persecuted. The Huguenots were for the most part men whose
instincts for truth and virtue had recoiled from the popular system, and
thus it was indeed as if piety and morality were arrayed on one side,
and superstition and debauchery on the other. Mr. Adderley thus
found the tone of the Ambassador’s chaplain that of far more complete
fellowship with the Reformed pastors than he himself was disposed to
admit. There were a large number of these gathered at Paris; for the
lull in persecution that had followed the battle of Moncontour had given
hopes of a final accommodation between the two parties, and many had
come up to consult with the numerous lay nobility who had congregated
to witness the King of Navarre’s wedding. Among them, Berenger met his
father’s old friend Isaac Gardon, who had come to Paris for the purpose
of giving his only surviving son in marriage to the daughter of a
watchmaker to whom he had for many years been betrothed. By him the
youth, with his innocent face and gracious respectful manners, was
watched with delight, as fulfilling the fairest hopes of the poor Baron,
but the old minister would have been sorely disappointed had he known
how little Berenger felt inclined towards his party.
The royal one of course Berenger could not love, but the rigid bareness,
and, as he thought, irreverence of the Calvinist, and the want of all
forms, jarred upon one used to a ritual which retained much of the
ancient form. In the early years of Elizabeth, every possible diversity
prevailed in parish churches, according to the predilections of rector
and squire; from forms scarcely altered from those of old times, down to
the baldest, rudest neglect of all rites; and Berenger, in his country
home, had been used to the first extreme. He could not believe that what
he heard and saw among the _Sacrementaires_, as they were called, was
what his father had prized; and he greatly scandalized Sidney, the pupil
of Hubert Languet, by openly expressing his distaste and dismay when he
found their worship viewed by both Walsingham and Sidney as a model to
which the English Protestants ought to be brought.
However, Sidney excused all this as more boyish distaste to sermons and
love of externals, and Berenger himself reflected little on the subject.
The aspect of the venerable Coligny, his father’s friend, did far more
towards making him a Huguenot than any discussion of doctrine. The good
old Admiral received him affectionately, and talked to him warmly of his
father, and the grave, noble countenance and kind manner won his heart.
Great projects were on foot, and were much relished by the young King,
for raising an army and striking a blow at Spain by aiding the Reformed
in the Netherlands; and Coligny was as ardent as a youth in the cause,
hoping at once to aid his brethren, to free the young King from evil
influences, and to strike one good stroke against the old national
enemy. He talked eagerly to Sidney of alliances with England, and then
lamented over the loss of so promising a youth as young Ribaumont to the
Reformed cause in France. If the marriage with the heiress could have
taken effect, he would have obtained estates near enough to some of
the main Huguenot strongholds to be very important, and these would now
remain under the power of Narcisse de Ribaumont, a determined ally of
the Guise faction. It was a pity, but the Admiral could not blame the
youth for obeying the wish of his guardian grandfather; and he owned,
with a sigh, that England was a more peaceful land than his own beloved
country. Berenger was a little nettled at this implication, and began to
talk of joining the French standard in a campaign in their present home
and described the conversation, Walsingham said,--
‘The Admiral’s favourite project! He would do wisely not to brag of it
so openly. The King of Spain has too many in his interest in this place
not to be warned, and to be thus further egged on to compass the ruin of
Coligny.’
‘I should have thought,’ said Sidney. ‘that nothing could add to his
hatred of the Reformed.’
‘Scarcely,’ said Walsingham; ‘save that it is they who hinder the Duke
of Guise from being a good Frenchman, and a foe to Spain.’
Politics had not developed themselves in Berenger’s mind, and he
listened inattentively while Walsingham talked over with Sidney the
state of parties in France, where natural national enmity to Spain was
balanced by the need felt by the Queen-mother of the support of that
great Roman Catholic power against the Huguenots; whom Walsingham
believed her to dread and hate less for their own sake than from the
fear of loss of influence over her son. He believed Charles IX. himself
to have much leaning towards the Reformed, but the late victories has
thrown the whole court entirely into the power of the Guises, the truly
unscrupulous partisans of Rome. They were further inflamed against the
Huguenots by the assassination of the last Duke of Guise, and by the
violences that had been committed by some of the Reformed party, in
especial a massacre of prisoners at _Nerac_.
Sidney exclaimed that the Huguenots had suffered far worse cruelties.
‘That is true,’ replied Sir Francis, ‘but, my young friend, you will
find, in all matters of reprisals, that a party has no memory for what
it may commit, only for what it may receive.’
The conversation was interrupted by an invitation to the Ambassador’s
family and guests to a tilting-match and subsequent ball at the Louvre.
In the first Berenger did his part with credit; to the second he went
feeling full of that strange attraction of repulsion. He knew gentlemen
enough in Coligny’s suite for it to be likely that he might remain
unperceived among them, and he knew this would be prudent, but he found
himself unexpectedly near the ranks of ladies, and smile and gesture
absolutely drew him towards his semi-spouse, so that he had no
alternative but to lead her out to dance.
The stately measure was trod in silence as usual, but he felt the dark
eyes studying him all the time. However, he could bear it better now
that the deed was done, and she had voluntarily made him less to her
than any gallant parading or mincing about the room.
‘So you bear the pearls, sir?’ she said, as the dance finished.
‘The only heirloom I shall take with me,’ he said.
‘Is a look at them too great a favour to ask from their jealous
guardian?’ she asked.
He smiled, half ashamed of his own annoyance at being obliged to place
them in her hands. He was sure she would try to cajole him out of them,
and by way of asserting his property in them he did not detach them from
the band of his black velvet cap, but gave it with them into her hand.
She looked at each one, and counted them wistfully.
‘Seventeen!’ she said;’ and how beautiful! I never saw them so near
before. They are so becoming to that fair cheek that I suppose no offer
from my--my uncle, on our behalf, would induce you to part with them?’
An impulse of open-handed gallantry would have made him answer, ‘No
offer from your uncle, but a simple request from you;’ but he thought in
time of the absurdity of returning without them, and merely answered,
‘I have no right to yield them, fair lady. They are the witness to my
forefather’s fame and prowess.’
‘Yes, sir, and to those of mine also,’ she replied. ‘And you would take
them over to the enemy from whom that prowess extorted them?’
‘The country which honoured and rewarded that prowess!’ replied
Berenger.
She looked at him with an interrogative glance of surprise at the
readiness of his answer; then, with half a sigh, said, ‘There are your
pearls, sir; I cannot establish our right, though I verily believe it
was the cause of our last quarrel;’ and she smiled archly.
‘I believe it was,’ he said, gravely; but added, in the moment of relief
at recovering the precious heirloom, ‘though it was Diane who inspired
you to seize upon them.’
‘Ah! poor Diane! you sometimes recollect her then? If I remember right,
you used to agree with her better than with your little spouse, cousin!’
‘If I quarrelled with her less, I liked her less,’ answered
Berenger--who, since the act of separation, had not been so guarded in
his demeanour, and began to give way to his natural frankness.
‘Indeed! Diane would be less gratified than I ought to be. And why, may
I ask?’
‘Diane was more caressing, but she had no truth.’
‘Truth! that was what _feu_ M. le Baron ever talked of; what Huguenots
weary one with.’
‘And the only thing worth seeking, the real pearl,’ said Berenger,
‘without which all else is worthless.’
‘Ah!’ she said, ‘who would have thought that soft, youthful face could
be so severe! You would never forgive a deceit?’
‘Never,’ he said, with the crystal hardness of youth; ‘or rather I might
forgive; I could never esteem.’
‘What a bare, rude world yours must be,’ she said, shivering. ‘And no
weak ones in it! Only the strong can dare to be true.’
‘Truth is strength!’ said Berenger. ‘For example: I see yonder a face
without bodily strength, perhaps, but with perfect candour.’
‘Ah! some Huguenot girl of Madame Catherine’s, no doubt--from the depths
of Languedoc, and dressed like a fright.’
‘No, no; the young girl behind the pale, yellow-haired lady.’
‘Comment, Monsieur. Do you not yet know the young Queen?’
‘But who is the young demoiselle!--she with the superb black eyes, and
the ruby rose in her black hair?’
‘Take care, sir, do you not know I have still a right to be jealous?’
she said, blushing, bridling, and laughing.
But this pull on the cords made him the more resolved; he would not be
turned from his purpose. ‘Who is she?’ he repeated; ‘have I ever seen
her before? I am sure I remember that innocent look of _espieglerie_.’
‘You may see it on any child’s face fresh out of the convent; it does
not last a month!’ was the still displeased, rather jealous answer.
‘That little thing--I believe they call her Nid-de-Merle--she has only
just been brought from her nunnery to wait on the young Queen. Ah! your
gaze was perilous, it is bringing on you one of the jests of Madame
Marguerite.’
With laughter and gaiety, a troop of gentlemen descended on M. de
Ribaumont, and told him that Madame Marguerite desired that he should be
presented to her. The princess was standing by her pale sister-in-law,
Elizabeth of Austria, who looked grave and annoyed at the mischievous
mirth flashing in Marguerite’s dark eyes.
‘M. de Ribaumont,’ said the latter, her very neck heaving with
suppressed fun, ‘I see I cannot do you a greater favour than by giving
you Mademoiselle de Nid-de-Merle for your partner.’
Berenger was covered with confusion to find that he had been guilty of
such a fixed stare as to bring all this upon the poor girl. He feared
that his vague sense of recognition had made his gaze more open than he
knew, and he was really and deeply ashamed of this as his worst act of
provincial ill-breeding.
Poor little convent maid, with crimson cheeks, flashing eyes, panting
bosom, and a neck evidently aching with proud dignity and passion, she
received his low bow with a sweeping curtsey, as lofty as her little
person would permit.
His cheeks burnt like fire, and he would have found words to apologize,
but she cut him short by saying, hastily and low, ‘Not a word, Monsieur!
Let us go through it at once. No one shall make game of us.’
He hardly durst look at her again; but as he went through his own
elaborate paces he knew that the little creature opposite was swimming,
bending, turning, bounding with the fluttering fierceness of an angry
little bird, and that the superb eyes were casting flashes on him that
seemed to carry him back to days of early boyhood.
Once he caught a mortified, pleading, wistful glance that made him feel
as if he had inflicted a cruel injury by his thoughtless gaze, and he
resolved to plead the sense of recognition in excuse; but no sooner
was the performance over than she prevented all conversation by saying,
‘Lead me back at once to the Queen, sir; she is about to retire.’ They
were already so near that there was no time to say anything; he could
only hold as lightly as possible the tiny fingers that he felt burning
and quivering in his hand, and then, after bringing her to the side of
the chair of state, he was forced to release her with the mere whisper
of ‘Pardon, Mademoiselle;’ and the request was not replied to, save by
the additional stateliness of her curtsey.
It was already late, and the party was breaking up; but his head
and heart were still in a whirl when he found himself seated in the
ambassadorial coach, hearing Lady Walsingham’s well-pleased rehearsal of
all the compliments she had received on the distinguished appearance
of both her young guests. Sidney, as the betrothed of her daughter, was
property of her own; but she also exulted in the praises of the young
Lord de Ribaumont, as proving the excellence of the masters whom she
had recommended to remove the rustic clownishness of which he had been
accused.
‘Nay,’ said Sir Francis; ‘whoever called him too clownish for court
spake with design.’
The brief sentence added to Berenger’s confused sense of being in a
mist of false play. Could his kinsman be bent on keeping him from
court? Could Narcisse be jealous of him? Mademoiselle de Ribaumont was
evidently inclined to seek him, and her cousin might easily think her
lands safer in his absence. He would have been willing to hold aloof as
much as his uncle and cousin could wish, save for an angry dislike to
being duped and cajoled; and, moreover, a strong curiosity to hear and
see more of that little passionate bird, fresh from the convent cage.
Her gesture and her eyes irresistibly carried him back to old times,
though whether to an angry blackbird in the yew-tree alleys at Leurre,
or to the eager face that had warned him to save his father, he could
not remember with any distinctness. At any rate, he was surprised to
find himself thinking so little in comparison about the splendid beauty
and winning manners of his discarded spouse, though he quite believed
that, now her captive was beyond her grasp, she was disposed to catch
at him again, and try to retain him, or, as his titillated vanity might
whisper, his personal graces might make her regret the family resolution
which she had obeyed.