Stray Pearls: Memoirs of Margaret De Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise, Yonge [love books to read txt] 📗

‘It is St. Augustine,’ he said. ‘I have been profiting by my leisure. I have almost come to the conclusion that there is nothing to be done for this unhappy France of ours but to pray for her. I had some hopes of the young King; but did Madame hear what he did when our deputies presented their petition to the States-General? He simply tore the paper, and said: ‘Retire, Messieur.’ He deems despotism his right and duty, and will crush all resistance. Men, like the Garde des Sceaux, have done their best, but we have no strength without the nobility, who simply use us as tools to gratify their animosity against one another.’

‘Only too true!’ I said. ‘There is not even permission given to us nobles to do good among our own peasants.’

‘There is permission for nothing but to be vicious sycophants,’ cried he bitterly. ‘At least save for the soldier, who thinks only of the enemies of France. Ah! my mother is right! All we can do to keep our hands unstained is to retire from the world, and pray, study, and toil like the recluses of Port Royal.’

‘Are you thinking of becoming one of them?’ I exclaimed.

‘I know not. Not while aught remains to be done for my country. Even that seems closed to me,’ he answered sadly. ‘I am unfortunate man, Madame,’ he added; ‘I have convictions, and I cannot crush them as I see others, better than I, can do—by appealing to simple authority and custom.’

‘They kept you from your Counsellor’s seat, I know,’ said I.—‘And made every one, except M. le Premier President, mistrust me for a conceited fellow. Well, and now they must keep me from casting in my lot with the recluses who labour and pray at Port Royal aux Champs, unless I can satisfy myself on scruples that perhaps my Huguenot breeding, perhaps my conversations with M. votre frere, have awakened in me. And—and—though I have the leisure, I know my head and heart are far from being cool enough to decide on points of theology,’ he added, covering his face for a moment with his hand.

‘You a recluse of Port Royal! I cannot believe in it,’ I said. ‘Tell me, Monsieur, is your motive despair? For I know what your hopes have been.’

‘Ah, Madame, then you also know what their overthrown has been, though you can never know what it has cost me. Those eyes, as clear-sighted as they are beautiful, saw only too plainly the folly of expecting anything in the service I was ready to adopt, and scorned my hopes of thus satisfying her family. I deserved it. May she find happiness in the connection she has accepted.’

‘Stay, sir,’ I said. ‘What has she accepted? What have you heard?’

He answered with a paler look and strange smile that his clerk had been desired by M. de Poligny’s notary to let him see the parchments of the Ribaumont estate, preparatory to drawing up the contract of marriage, to be ready to be signed in a week’s time.’

‘Ah, sir,’ I said, ‘you are a lawyer, and should know how to trust to such evidence. The contract is impossible without my brother, who is too ill to hear of it, and my sister has uttered no word of consent, nor will she, even though she should remain unmarried for life.’

‘Will she forgive me?’ he exclaimed, as though ready to throw himself at my feet.

I told him that he must find out for himself, and he returned that I was an angel from heaven. On the whole I felt more like a weak and talkative woman, a traitress to my mother; but then, as I looked at him, there was such depth of wounded affection, such worth and superiority to all the men I was in the habit of seeing, that it was impossible not to feel that if Annora had any right to choose at all she had chosen worthily.

But I thought of my mother, and would not commit myself further, and I rose to leave him; I had, however, waited too long. The mob were surging along the streets, as they always did when the magistrates came home from the Parliament, howling, bellowing, and yelling round the unpopular ones.

‘Death to the Big Beard!’ was the cry, by which they meant good old Mathieu Mole, who had incurred their hatred for his loyalty, and then they halted opposite to the Maison Darpent to shout: ‘Death to the Big Beard and his jackal!’

‘Do not fear, Madame, it will soon be over,’ said Darpent. ‘It is a little amusement in which they daily indulge. The torrent will soon pass by, and then I will do myself the honour of escorting you home.’

I thought I was much safer than he, and would have forbidden him, but he smiled, and said I must not deny him the pleasure of walking as far as the door of the Hotel de Nidemerle.

‘But why do they thus assail you and the Garde des Sceaux?’ I asked.

‘Because so few in this unfortunate country can distinguish between persons and causes,’ he said. ‘Hatred to Mazarin and to the Queen as his supporter is the only motive that sways them. If he can only be kept out they are willing to throw themselves under the feet of the Prince that he may trample them to dust. Once, as you know, we hoped that there was public spirit enough in the noblesse and clergy, led by the Coadjutor, to join with us in procuring the assembling of the States-General, and thus constitutionally have taken the old safeguards of the people. They deceived us, and only made use of us for their own ends. The Duke of Orleans, who might have stood by us, is a broken reed, and now, in the furious clash of parties, we stand by, waiting till the conqueror shall complete our destruction and oppression, and in the meantime holding to the only duty that is clear to us—of loyalty to the King, let that involve what it may.’

‘And because it involves the Cardinal you are vituperated,’ I said. ‘The Court ought to reward your faithfulness.’

‘So I thought once, but it is more likely to reward our resistance in its own fashion if its triumph be once secured,’ he answered. ‘Ah, Madame, are visions of hope for one’s country mere madness?’

And certainly I felt that even when peace was made between him and my sister, as it certainly soon would be, the future looked very black before them, unless he were too obscure for the royal thunderbolts to reach.

However, the mob had passed by, to shriek round the Hotel de Ville.

Food and wine were dealt out to them by those who used them as their tools, and they were in a frightful state of demoralization, but the way was clear for the present, and Clement Darpent would not be denied walking by my chair, though he could hardly have guarded me, but he took me through some by-streets, which avoided the haunts of the mob; and though he came no further than our door, the few words I ventured to bring home reassured Eustace, and made Annora look like another being.