For the Religion: being the records of Blaise de Bernauld

Front matter

a FOE THE RELIGION BEING THE RECORDS OF BLAISE DE BERNAULD FOE THE KELIGION BEIXG THE RECORDS OF BLAISE DE BERNAULD EV HAMILTON DRUMMOND AUTHOR OF " GOBELIN GRANGE " LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATEBLOO PLACE 1898 (All rights reserved) CONTENTS. CHAPTER TAGE I. Why Marcel rode Post from Paris ... ... 1 II. What followed the Slaughter of Vassy ... 15 III. HOW WE RODE FROM ORLEANS TO DREUX ... ... 26 IV. Dreux, and after ... ... ... ... 36 V. Why the King sent to Carmeuse ... ... 50 VI. Chatillon and Coligny ... ... ... 62 VII. Eochelle ... ... ... ... ... 75 VIII. How I fell in Debt to D'Armand ... ... 85 IX. The " Holy Faith " and the " Queen of Navarre " part Company ... ... ... ... 96 X. We find more than we seek ... ... ... 110 XI. The "San Luca" ... ... ... ... 125 XII. When Men forget themselves, the Devil remembers THEM ... ... ... ... ... 137 XIII.

Florida ... ... ... ... ... 152 XIV. The finding of the Witch-wife ... ... 162 XV. The First Landing of Diego Saumarez ... 175 XVI. The Second Landing of Diego Saumarez ... 189 XVII. Diego Saumarez lands the Third and Last Time CONTENTS. VI CHAPTEE PAGE XVIII. The End of the Treachery ... ... ... 221 XIX. Florida Woods 210 XX. From West to East ... ... ... ... 254 XXI. A Beggar's Return ... ... ... 264 XXII. "The Dead can wait"... ... ... ... 277 XXIII. "If it be Right to be done, we shall do it" 292 XXIV. Nathan the Jew ... ... ... ... 304 XXV. The Hour of God's Justice upon Earth ... FOE THE RELIGION BEING THE RECORDS OF BLAISE DE BEBNAULD.

Chapter I. Avhy Marcel Rode Post From Paris

The days had been such blessed days of peace, and for so long a time, that he who knows the swayings of the pendulum of life will not wonder that I, for all the chilliness of age in my blood, grew restive. Men had so often said, " Peace and safety," that sudden destruction must needs be near at hand. The skies were unnaturally clear, and we of the south know that there is no such lightning as summer-lightning when all the air is calm. " Look to yourself when the days are overbright, so that you be not taken unawares by the tempest," is as true of politics as of the weather, and so I was afraid. Small credit to me if I were right. John Ploughman down in the fields yonder, out of his sixty years of nature, can scent a storm two days off; and should not I, who have had my fingers in the affairs of France ever since the days of the Great Admiral, know when B the dish grows hot ?

Truly yes, and so for all that the heart of summer was beating warm and strong in the power of its youth, and the world aglow with life, a shadow struck across me, and I was afraid. He who knows the roads of this good France when they have been well sodden by the spring rains, will say that forty leagues a day for four days is brave haste. Mud to the knees at times, and the paths gapped and trenched where torrents have torn across them. The rivers brimming to the banks, and half the fords in such a swirl that he who spurs his beast into the flood had need have either the fear of the devil behind or the hope of love before. Marcel had both, since what is the devil but death and the unknown ? and as for love, our house has always been held dear in its servants' hearts, and with cause. Brave haste, truly, the lad made, and much need, seeing that the news which came on that 28th of April was such as comes not every day.

We were sunning ourselves out by the south porch, Blaise and I, when Marcel pushed across the pasture from the Tarbes road in as straight a line as a man can make from Paris. Not that we knew him to be Marcel then ; but none but one of De Bernauld's men would use that path, and it was plain enough that he and his beast had travelled far, and were weary almost to death. So we dropped our idle talk and waited, watching ; while in my heart I knew the shadow had taken substance. AVHY MARCEL RODE POST FROM PARIS. 3 The lad rode slowly, so slowly that a gust of impatient passion shook me, more after the fashion of hot eighteen than cold eighty, and it was with a touch of evil temper that I bade Blaise stir himself and bring the news. Then as the boy went, blithely enough, his great deerhound lumbering by his side, I took myself roundly to task for an old fool.

Doth an ill wind not blow hard and sure enough that a man must needs run to meet it ? And why so set upon an ill wind? Why should this hot haste not be the bringing of some still broader message of peace to us of The Religion ? It would be no strange thing if that scheming rascal, D'Ancre, feeling his feet slip, bethought himself to lean upon Rochelle in the west and Beam in the south. Nantes had done much, God and King Henry be thanked, but much remained to be done. Truly D'Ancre had no love for us, but there is such a thing as personal policy. Why should ■ this unjust steward not take our heavy bill of fourscore and write fifty, thus opening up a door of reception when the mammon of unrighteousness cast him out, as cast him out it assuredly would ? Why should And on top of my whys, Blaise, in careless nonchalance, like one who says the dog hath killed his rat, called from the foot of the terrace — " D'Ancre is murdered up in Paris, yonder, by De Luynes, and a fair riddance.

My faith, but the rogue was not worth the cost of the honest horseflesh bringing the tidings." The news went through me like a knife, ay, down to the very feet for all their five years' paralysis ; but I said nothing of that, only bade the lad sit down and hold his peace that I might think. Now, I have ever held that there are times when to think in speech is a good thing. For one reason, there is an enforced deliberation, since a choice of words is a weighing of thought ; and, for another, the flint of your thought may strike upon the steel of another's, and thus set light a-flying. " So ! the news is that Marshal D'Ancre is dead. Murdered by De Luynes, and De Luynes, I doubt not, has set himself up as new King of the King in his stead. AVell, bloody boots bring the wearer an ill luck, and between the honesty of the Marshal and De Luynes, France hath little to choose.

But for us at Beam who are a France within a France, for us of The Religion there is the question, What comes next, and near at hand ? What but a sorrowful and troublous time ? That is clear." Whereat Blaise, who had stretched himself by my couch, left off pulling his deerhound by the ears, and, with a ring of bitterness in his voice, asked wherein D'Ancre had shown such love for us Huguenots, that we should grieve for him. " Come now," said I, " thou hast had three years of the University there at Cahors, and being a shrewd lad hast sucked its learning dry. Yet I would pit the wisdom of a well-nigh fourscore paralytic against it AVHY MARCEL RODE POST FROM PARIS. 5 all. With the rest of the knowledge — knowledge which in my day no man cared a pin's point fee for, except he were a priest, or such a one as the Great Admiral, who, I think, knew everything — with the rest of thy knowledge, I say, thou hast learnt to chop logic ?

Now of that I know nothing, but I can draw what you call a deduction. If things are so, and such and such happens ; then, when things are so again, such and such will follow. Tut, boy ; keep those eyes of thine elsewhere, lest I read fool in them over-plainly for the wholesome health of thy skin. For such a covert insolence in my look, my father had smitten me in the mouth till my teeth rattled. Do you think that because God forgive an old fool who with half his body dead cannot keep the other half in temper. That was never Coligny's way." Then there was silence, and Blaise fell to playing with the dog again to cover his shrinking from my outburst. " Do you think," I went on at last, " that a man can see the clouds fly for so many years, and not know which way the wind blows ? As to the logic, it is the logic of Solomon, and of every wise man since his day ; tha* which hath been will be, and there is nothing new under the sun.

D'Ancre — let the hound go, and come thou near and hearken — who said the Marshal had a favour to us ? He had none. God forbid that his Church should have aught in common with Belial ! But D'Ancre being dead, De Luynes, being overmuch alive, will next seek to overshadow the throne, and that he may climb in peace and without hindrance, he will fling us of The Religion to the wolves. That, you think, is a non sequitur? — Oh ay, the Admiral knew all things, logic with the rest, and I have heard him talk— but I tell you it does follow. Set the south and west ablaze, and men's eyes are drawn from Paris while De Luynes does his climbing ; there you have it. Once he is astride of the topmost bough, whoever sees can but clap his hands and keep his bitter heart quiet for his skin's sake. " What is that thou sayest ?

Nantes ? Truly Cahors is not all waste when a lad can see the largest truth in France at the first glance ! Ay, there the Bear of Beam wrought well for his whelps, and so there is Nantes with its guarantees of safety, free worship. and the rest. But, out of my fourscore years of rubbing shoulders with hard fact, I tell you, son Blaise, that there are times when edicts are like men, and good for nought else but to hang up till they are dead. Hearken ! in the old days, they gave us the Edict of January, and six weeks later came the slaughter of Vassy. Then in 70 they gave us the Treaty of Saint Germain, and in two years to the very month came Saint Germain l'Auxerrois and the night of Bartho lomew. Saint Germain trampling Saint Germain in the bloody mire, and the King's arquebus firing a n yal salute for the treachery.

Edicts ! we have edicts enough, but Nantes will go the way of the rest when AVHY MARCEL RODE POST FROM PARIS. 7 De Luynes stands in need of leisure to climb to power. We of The Religion know the worth of the faith of Rome. If we be harmless as cloves, let us also have the wisdom of the serpent. " Now, as then, there is a weak king. In that Louis and Charles are an even balance, though the one is less hysterical than the other, and, it may be, more honest. Now, as then, there is a rapacious favourite, cankered to the heart with greed and ambition, and whose every rung in the ladder of success has been a corpse. Let but the poor weep over-loud in their fine-ground misery, and to drown their wailing and close men's ears to their sorrows, this favourite will turn to the King and raise the cry of ' Death to the heretic' Montfaucon's gibbets can still hang Huguenots ; Paris has her fires, slaked clown it may be for the moment, but the ashes are sullenly hot and ready to flame into destruction at the first puff.

The Seine and the Loire have still their waters. Where men have hung and burnt and drowned, men may yet hang, burn, and drown; for though the years change, Rome is as Rome was, and ambition gains no new scruple with the years. " Not to-morrow, all this will be, nor next day, but it is near at hand. But here, son Blaise, bear this in mind, that near at hand to four score is leagues away to eighteen years. If there were two years from Saint Germain to Saint Germain, there may well be more from D'Ancre's murder to De Luynes' necessity, and what are two years for the saving of a people, for the confirming of a faith ? Nothing. For ten times two years Coligny laboured and planned, giving thought, arm, and heart to nought else, and failed in the end. Would to the Lord that his dream of France beyond seas for us of The Religion had been reality, then might D'Ancre die, De Luynes climb, the edict be flung aside, and Bome show herself to be true Rome, all to no great hurt."

" Ay," said Blaise, and with more of a man's shrewd ness than I had thought was in the curly head of the boy — " ay ; but where Coligny failed, having a score of years out of which to work salvation, together with a deeper wit and a larger power than is ours, how can we succeed ? Best shirk the conflict and find peace elsewhere. They say that England— — " But in the midst of our talk there came Gaspard — my Gaspard's eldest boy, that is — to say his father waited me in the great hall to tell me news that had come post from Paris. The two lads wheeled me in by the broad south door, where the ground without and the floor within had been made a level for the easy travelling of my couch, and were leaving me by the central oak table, which was my accustomed place, when I called them back. " Let them bide, Gaspard," I said.

" If there is evil in this news of yours, it is full time they learned that it is a man's business to take evil and, under God, shape it into good. If the news be good— and it must be one or other, since no man rides post from Paris to WHY MARCEL RODE POST FROM PARIS. 9 tell the follies of the fashions — still let them bide, for good news comes so haltingly to us of The Religion that it is an ill thing to hold it back, even by an hour." So the two fell into the shadows and waited. In the comer stood Marcel, splashed to the face with mud, and, as it seemed to me, with other stains than those of the road on his bridle arm. The more haste one makes in France, the more there are to say " curb back," and not always to their own comfort. Marcel has a clear head in a brawl, and I doubt not more were hurt than he.

From him to the opposite comer, backwards and forth in front of the great empty fire place, strode Gaspard, ever biting his moustache as was his trick when his mind was ill at ease. " Let them bide, then," said he ; " though whether the news be good or ill will try a riper wit than theirs." Whereat I laughed, and cried, "Your doubt has settled it. Since things doubtful are of the devil, the news is bad." Gaspard halted by the chair, resting one hand on the bar of the handle. " The news is this," he said. But I held up an open palm and waved him into silence. "It was ever Coligny 's way to get his news first hand, and thereby he saved himself many a miscon ception. The more ears hear and mouths speak, the deeper the tinge of prejudice. Herein is no slight to you, but where a tale is of life and death, and the bearer of the tale be present, let him tell it at first hand, and not another.

Speak on, Marcel, only it is of Paris we would hear, and not of the four days by the road." From his place in the comer Marcel strode a pace into the room, wrenched his sword-belt further to the left, and began — " For three months past D'Ancre hath had an evil reputation, and men have looked askance- " But again I put up my hand. "Friend," I said, " a man does not pass four days foundering horseflesh to tell Beam that which Beam knows full well. Why, man, we have smelt D'Ancre's reputation all these leagues away-. Have done with thy three months past, and give us thy kernel of news ; the dry shells of gossip will keep. To the point, now ; to the point." " Marshal D'Ancre is slain by De Yitry in Paris, shot down like a dog, and no man cries out agaiust the murder. De Luynes, who set De Yitry on and was the brain of the hand that killed, is firm fixed in the Marshal's seat.

That is the kernel of it, and no man knows who falls next. The city is in a ferment, and there are those who fear that nought but the letting of Huguenot blood will cool the fever. 'Tis thought " But I brought down my palm on the flat of the chair arm in suc-h a fashion as set a bound to Marcel's speech. " Who sent thee," I cried, " to prate of thoughts WHY MARCEL RODE POST FROM PARIS. 11 and fears? Thy message is of things done, and no more. Hast thou aught else of blood to tell from the bloody city ? Aught that a De Bernauld should know, so that a De Bernauld may think without fearing ? Nought else ? Go, then, to thy rest, man ; it is earned indeed, for thou hast done well, and had Coligny been here he had said no less. See, too, to that hurt of thine, for both bridle and sword-arm may be wanted ere long."

As the door closed upon Marcel, Gaspard turned to me, but I motioned him to silence. " Train the lads," I said ; " let youth speak first, being asked to speak ; else will youth and sonship echo age and fatherhood lest it speak folly, and so never use its brains. Where cloth all this tend, grandson Gaspard ? " " Nowhere," he answered. " 'Tis but a rascal of France for a rascal of Florence ; a De Luynes, as he has said, in D'Ancre's seat, and we of The Religion are neither better nor worse." " Clear to the point, a rare good thing in counsel, be it right or wrong. Now, son Gaspard ? " " There is Blaise," he said, " let him speak, since it is your whim to put the elders last. Such was never my wray." " Nay," I said ; " Blaise, being a good lad, will play parrot to his grandsire lest his grandsire's tongue smite him for his foolishness.

We have talked of this before. The council waits, Gaspard." "Then the two Gaspards are at one," he cried. "All this pother is about nothing. What odds who sways the King so long as the same cool greed inward and hot hate outward sway the man ? Florentine or Frenchman, Marshal or Sieur, D'Ancre or De Luynes ; we of The Religion have as much to fear and as little to hope, no more and no less." But I shook my head. " It is well enough that lads newly from the lecture halls of Cahors should know little of France's history, since that is the way of such places ; but with us it is different. Let Poitou complain, and who is punished ? The Huguenots. Is Guienne disaffected, and for good cause ; upon whom is the blame? The Huguenots. Is Paris dissatisfied; restless, vacillating, unstable Paris, never satisfied ; wretched, hungry, squalid Paris, ever miserable ?

Fling her the Huguenots. Is a favourite threatened by the people ? Turn their wrath on the Huguenots. Is there a crime to be covered ? Set the lie on the Huguenots. Are the sorrows of the poor intolerable ? Let them plunder the Huguenots. Does the avarice of the rich grow threatening ? Let them plunder the Huguenots. Has D'Ancre swept bare the treasury ? Let him plunder the Huguenots. Must De Luynes fill his coffers ? Let him plunder the Huguenots. From Calais to Tarbes, from Brest to Besancon, on whom, of all France, light the follies, the crimes, the caprices of high and ot' low? Ou the Huguenots, Huguenots. Huguenots ; aud yet with a fresh man set up in Paris, AVHY MARCEL RODE POST FROM PARIS. 13 to be gorged with blood or with gold as his taste may be, you say we of The Religion have nothing fresh to fear.

" Out of the limbo which lies near heaven, God sent France Coligny ; and France killed him. Since then, out of the limbo that lies near hell, God set free the passions of Guise, Henry of Yalois, D'Ancre. Each in his turn poured his contempt upon our faith, trampled on our rights, ground us into the very mire. Yet out of them all we learned nothing. " Now it is De Luynes' turn. In five years his necessities will goad him on, and Beam will be set ablaze that he may plunder Beam under colour of putting down sedition of his own creation. Four score years old can say ' burn and welcome,' the grave is a safe refuge enough. But you? WTill you learn nought? Predestination? Prate not to me of pre destination. There is enough of the old Arminian leaven in me to say that more men are destined to misery by their own wills than by that of the Almighty.

Wre close our eyes to our opportunities ; we foster evil for sake of its flavour, we cramp the good that may be lest it cramp the evil that is ; and we say ' predestina tion.' But let that pass. My word is this. Turn Coligny's dream of a France beyond the seas into a reality. He failed, but recorded failure is achievement half won. Out of the grub failure do you breed the butterfly success." I had as well held my peace. With such as Gaspard, the gathered wit of fourscore has no more weight in counsel than the wailing of the wind. " Dreams," he said, " are light things, so are not the uprootings of a family; and, by your leave, sir, the breeding of butterflies is boy's work." At no time should a man call his own flesh and blood " fool," so I held my peace. But even the narrowest bigot hits truth at times, and, that the breeding of this butterfly may be my boy's work, I have caused to be set down the tale of that double journey to Florida in the old days, in the hope that what there was of wisdom will abide, and what there was of folly may warn from a like error.

Only, God grant me not five years of life ; for w hat with Yassy and Saint Bartholomew, Dreux, Jamac, and the swamps of Florida, I have seen enough of blood and man's wrath.

Chapter II. Avhat Folloaved The Slaughter Of Vassy

Though the De Bernaulds can boast as many generations as any Count of Gascony, yet have they no other nobility than that of their deeds and their descent. For the past these suffice. For the present they are of little value, since a man may have the pedigree of a Bourbon, with every one of his forefathers a paladin, and yet within his span betwixt birth and death leave no record worth the telling. If the men of the past have set no stamp upon the man of the present, it is as if they had never been. The many dead De Bernaulds may rest in peace. It may be that the less said of some of them the better, and I have ever found it more than enough to answer for one De Bernauld in the flesh. Nor do the first score or more years of life come much into the tale, nor yet how the De Bernaulds, from being loyal and Catholic for twelve generations, had now for two been loyal and Huguenot.

For the first, childhood and youth ; that is, the turbulent years of incessant warfare bred a hardi ness which had its after-value. Of necessity, soldiers ripened early, and many a lad had blood on his hands, if not on his soul, before there was down on his lip. Whatever its defects, the school of the days of Henry the Second had, at least, the merit of turning out men of toughened fibre. If there were others less robust, they died in the struggle or turned priest. For the second, the change may have been due to political pique at the first, then part pique and part conscience. But at the last it was all conscience, and such a conscience that the Yaudois horrors of '45 had no other effect than to stiffen it into stubbornness and sturdier conviction. If the inherited heresy was still half-hearted, the day of the slaughter of those fourteen in the fires of Meaux ended the vacillation.

The ashes of the martyrs was the Church's seed, and thenceforward the De Bernauld of his day was uncompromisingly Huguenot. When at eighteen I became the last of my race, the world had little to give me. My patrimony, if not large, was sufficient ; and if a man have enough, the universe can give him no more. From generations of simple-living gentlemen had been handed clown strength, inches, and a well-knit frame. Of the arts of war the disastrous campaign before Saint Quent in had taught me somewhat. In personal attack and defence I had skill enough to be less modest than I was, while in book-learning I had sufficient knowledge to know my ignorance. Add to these health, and a creed which held loyalty AVHAT FOLLOAVED THE SLAUGHTER OF VASSY. 17 to the King subject only to God and conscience ; and what more of material good had life to give ?

If any answer, "love," I reply that at eighteen, saving for poets and such-like dreamers, the mistress of life is activity and the next new thing. A mistress not hard to find in those clays, nor coy when found. While Henry the Third sat on the throne of France, time came with both hands full, and the jostle of events stirred the blood to fever heat. Hardly had passed the spasm of pride which hailed the restoration of Calais to the nation, when there came the rejoicing at the union of the dauphin with the Queen of Scots. But if France was then to be the greater by a kingdom, it was soon to be the less by a king. A year later, and Montgomery's lance-shaft at the jousts of Tournelles turned to mourning the marriage feasts of Henry's sister and daughter. In Henry's place, Francis, shorn of all authority, was but the shadow of a king — a shadow that soon faded into forgottenness, leaving behind but little of record beyond the shameful massacre of Amboise, the disgrace of which was none the less because the slaughter was judicial, and had Queen Mary's presence to grace it !

It was the wolf of Guise's first lapping of French blood, but not the last. Within eight months of the terror of Amboise, Charles the Ninth sat in his brother's place. Then came the January edict of toleration, and hard upon its promulgation, before its ink had well blackened, c followed the wolf of Guise's second lapping of French blood in the sabbath savagery and slaughter of Yassy. Three score and four harmless people, unarmed and unoffensive— men, women, children— butchered as they praised God for the King's gift of freedom of worship. Small wonder if, in the face of outraged law, Coligny flew to arms, though only to see Rouen sacked and to suffer check, if not defeat, at Dreux. j Then vengeance struck home surely and suddenly, and the Guise of blood perished in blood. Would that righteous justice had been less lawless, but Guise him self had set the fashion of murder, and that he shoidd die by the bullet of the assassin was common requital.

In that he had three days to die in, he found more mercy than the burghers of Yassy to whom he gave not thrice three minutes. After that, Guise being gone to his own place, Amboise avenged itself, and from the town of slaughter came the renewed edict of toleration and peace. All that in five short years. Said I not rightly that in those clays activity and the next new thing was a mistress neither coy nor hard to find ? In certain of these scenes and actions I played my part, but, saving for the inuring of the man or the training of the soldier, they in no way touched after events. Not so with Coligny's call to arms in '62. Of it something more must be said, since but for what followed thereupon j I had never fared west to Florida. WHAT FOLLOWED THE SLAUGHTER OF YASSY. 19 It is a far cry from the Orleannais to Beam, but the wailing of the mourners at Tours, Auxerre, and Cahors gave the voice of the Admiral clearness, vigour, and insistance ; and there were few who loved our Jeanne D'Albret who did not, in some fashion, respond to the call.