"The Little Huguenot." A Romance of Fontainebleau

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"THE LITTLE HUGUENOT"

BY MAX PEMBERTON AUTHOR OF "THE IMPREGNABLE CITY," ETC

NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1895

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER I PEPIN IS BLESSED.

The priest had a volume of Cicero upon his lap, and in his right hand there was a rosary carved of amber and of gold. Though the sun's beams fell soft in the glen, and the grass was green and rich, and a canopy of young leaves cast welcome shade upon his face, he continued to read the oration upon which his eyes had fallen, and to banish those seductive whisperings of the devil, that he should lay himself down and sleep. Insensible to the wooing music of the gushing cascade, or to that stillness which had come upon all nature as the heat of the day fell, he maintained a fine rigidity of posture as he sat upright upon a boulder of stone, and bent his whole soul to the study of the black-lettered text before him. Hours passed and found his attitude unchanged; a distant church bell chimed the quarters dolefully, and drew from him no other response than the mutter of an Ave; the shadows in the glen lengthened and lengthened; even the first freshness of night breathed upon the forest, and left him insensible to all but those problems of his faith which crowded upon his mind.

Death and sleep and eternity! A priest may think even of these. Six years before this year, 1772, Père Cavaignac was far too busy snatching souls in Paris to trouble himself with those more subtle reasonings to which a new philosophy had turned. But here in the depths of the forest of Fontainebleau, it was otherwise. The very atmosphere seemed dream-giving and full of spells. The unbroken silence of the thickets, the music of the glittering falls, the dark places of pools and caverns, threw back the man's mind upon itself, and wrung from him the question, To what end? Why was he an exile from the capital? Why was his home a hut of logs hidden even from the eyes of the woodlanders? For what cause did he eat black bread and drink sour wine? That he might sleep for ever after death as he had slept through eternity before his birth? Night and the new philosophy told him that here was his answer; day and the soul's voice rekindled his faith so that he seemed to behold the Christ walking in the forest before him. And in these moments, the remembrance that he was a hunted man, that when next he looked upon the city that he loved it would be for the last time, exalted his whole being, and lifted him up in visions to the gates of heaven itself.

Night began to come down in earnest when at last the Jesuit closed his book. He had sat so still in his meditation that a deer thrust herself through the bracken not fifty yards from him, and drank undisturbed at the rippling brook. A great eagle was soaring high above him; and oft as he listened he could hear the crafty patter of a wolf or the screech of a heron in the distant marsh. There was no tongue of the forest with which six years of exile had not made him familiar; no note of bird or beast that was novel enough to carry his mind from the path it followed. From man alone he turned, hiding himself in the very depths of the bracken, frequenting the darker caves, lurking in the glens where the springs bubbled and the adder sunned himself. It was not alone that the edict of banishment which had fallen upon his Order made men a danger to him. He had been indiscreet enough to believe that the broad principles of his faith were meant to bind prince and peasant alike; and he had even denounced the profligacy of kings from the pulpit; and this with so fanatical a zeal that men cried, "Here is a new Ravaillac—let his Majesty beware of him!" From that day there was no den dark enough to hide him in Paris, no friend so powerful that he could find shelter in his house. He fled to the forest, and lurked there waiting and watching, as his rector had commanded him.

The deer drank at the stream, and bounded into the thicket again; the silver birches swayed their branches before the gentle west wind; a clock in the distant village chimed the hour of seven. The priest rose from his seat, and wrapped himself in the warm black cape which served him for cloak by day and blanket by night. Then he forced his way through the bushes and struck upon a narrow, bramble-hidden path which carried him out upon the lawn-like sward above. Here were great gnarled oaks and groves of yoke-elms; undulating sweeps of the finest grass land all carpeted with violets; pools deep down in the shady glades; even beaches of the finest yellow sand, where the brooklets made music in their pebbly beds. But the Jesuit had eyes for none of these things. He stood at the glen's head, motionless, irresolute, perhaps even fearful. A small company of mounted men had debouched from the opposite wood; and seeing him, one of their number set spurs to the beast he rode and galloped furiously across the grass.

The man was ill-dressed, and odd enough to be remarkable anywhere. He wore a leather jerkin about his body, and a broad-brimmed hat with the stump of a feather in it. His calves were bound round with strips of bright green cloth, and his breeches were balloon-shaped and of prodigious size. He had a pair of little twinkling eyes which danced like the flame of a candle in the wind, and his cheeks were so fat that rolls of flesh almost hid his mouth. For sword he carried a cudgel of black wood; and from the holster, where his pistols should have been, the end of a four-holed flageolet protruded. But conspicuous among his accoutrements was a wine-skin with little in it, and this he held his hand upon lovingly while he addressed the Jesuit.

"Holy Mother of God, defend me from all devils!" said he, surveying the motionless priest with some curiosity; and then, in quick correction, he added:

"Thy blessing, my father!"

The Jesuit turned upon him a swift, searching glance.

"What do you want with me?" he asked in a hard, cold, rarely used voice.

"No other service than one of charity, most reverend sir. I am a man of peace, as you may observe, carrying no other weapon than that which may rob men of their feet to—wit, may set them to the dance, the ballad, the pasquil and those light enjoyments of the flesh which our master Horace has even deigned to commend on occasion. And now for my sins, for which I pray the intercession of my holy patron, whose honourable name I happen to have forgotten, I—who know the forest better than the Mass book—am lost in this tangle at a moment when the natural humour of man leads him to meat and even to a cup of wine. Take me to these, my father, and I will jingle so many silver pieces in your hand that a whole legion of souls shall to-morrow go dancing out of purgatory."

The man stopped for want of breath. The priest was about to plunge again into the thicket, leaving him unanswered, when the others of the cavalcade rode up, and the leader, who was dressed in the uniform of the king's musketeers, reined in his horse and doffed his plumed hat to the ecclesiastic.

"Sir," said he, "I am a lieutenant of the guard bound upon a mission from his Majesty to the Château aux Loups, which, as you may be aware, is the residence of Madame La Comtesse de Vernet. If you can set us on the way thither2"

"Or to any decent inn where we may find food and drink," chimed in the first fellow.

"Pepin, keep your tongue still."

"Nay, my captain, there is no hand in France strong enough to hold it."

"If you can set us, I say, on the road thither," continued the other, ignoring his servant, and addressing the Jesuit, "I will see that we do not forget the service."

The priest had looked up quickly at the mention of the Château aux Loups. For a moment he seemed to be occupied counting the number of the escort, and this the leader of it observed.

"Fear nothing from these men, sir," said he, "my mission is an honourable one, and will be welcome to the countess. By the Mass, she should be glad of a little company in such a wilderness as this."

"Your mission is an honourable one—and yet you come from the king, sir?" said the priest now looking the lieutenant full in the face.

"Aye, honourable, indeed," interrupted the buffoon, Pepin; "and hark ye, my father, another word such as that and I will even lay my cudgel on your back. The devil take you for a loutish brawler. I would as soon talk with a throaty Spaniard."

"Pepin, if you do not keep your tongue still, I will cut it out," said the Lieutenant de Guyon, turning round lazily in his saddle.

"Aye, my master, that would be a service, for on my life it is as dry as a peppercorn."

The priest had seemed to be thinking deeply while servant and master thus disputed. In truth, a hundred questions were troubling him. Why had de Guyon, a notorious tool of du Barry, come with an escort of six musketeers and this clown to the retreat of Gabrielle de Vernet? What evil did the visit portend? Of what meaning was it to him personally—or to his Order, which had found in the girlish mistress of the château one of its sincerest friends? Before he could answer any single suggestion, the captain of the band spoke again.

"I am awaiting your answer, my father. You have heard of madame?"

The priest answered slowly.

"So surely have I heard of her, and of the holy way she walks, that if I thought you had come here meaning any ill to her, I would strike you down with my own hand. Paul de Guyon, look where you go, lest you lose the path and your eyes be blinded. You talk to me of an honourable mission, but what of honour hath the king with Gabrielle de Vernet? Speak no lies lest the Almighty God blast them on your lips."

He stood with arm outstretched and fire in his eyes, and for a moment the other quailed before him; but de Guyon recovered himself quickly, and cloaking his anger as he might, he gave rein to his horse.

"Did our time not press, master priest," said he, "I would pause awhile to knock sense into your head with the flat of my sword. A curse on you and your warnings, too. We will even find the château for ourselves."

He turned away making a sign to his men; but the buffoon bent down from his saddle and placed a hand upon the priest's shoulder.

"Benedicite! holy father," said he, "but you are free with your warnings. And hark ye, I, Pepin the fool, have a word of warning also. Get to your hut, François Cavaignac, for I recognise you, and by the blessed Host I will have you hanged as high as yonder elm."

The priest's hand trembled for a moment upon the hilt of the dagger which his cassock concealed. But it was only for a moment. Conquering his temper, and disdaining other weapon than his fist, he suddenly dealt the jester a rousing box on the ear, and then plunged into the thicket.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER II AT THE GATE OF THE CHÂTEAU.

Pepin rubbed his ear ruefully, and sat looking at the bushes wherein the priest had disappeared.

"Dog of a Jesuit," he muttered, "if you had stayed2"

He made an ugly grimace with the words, and finished what wine there was in the skin. Then, remembering that the others had now ridden out of hearing, he set spurs to his mule and galloped after them.

"So the priest boxed your ears?" said de Guyon, surveying him with some amusement.

"Parbleu! Excellency, he did but give me his benediction."

"I wish he had knocked some sense into your head."

"Would you cry 'A miracle!' mon maître?"

"I would cry anything you please if it would set me on the road again. I thought you knew every path in the forest. You told me so when I engaged you at the Barrière d'Enfer. "

"Aye, and that is so, sir. Every path I know, and yet which path is which, the devil take me if I can say. Look yonder now; there is a grove of yoke-elms with a wood of pines beyond it, and a brook hollow betwixt and between. I could name a hundred such within ten leagues from the Table du Roi. Oh, truly, mon maître, I know the forest as a horse knows the stable."

De Guyon, whose beast stumbled often upon the sandy track, and whose patience was fast ebbing, answered him with a fresh objurgation—long and lasting. It was now near to being full dark, and but for the light of the moonbeams, which fell soft upon copse and thicket and seemed to cast a snowy mantle—so white it was—upon every leaf and bush, the way would have been impossible. Yet the scene was one of exceeding beauty. The shiver of the aspen, the ripple of brook or stream, the long-drawn note of a night bird intensified the dreamy silence of the forest. Here and there when a horse forced his way through the bramble with a snap of twigs and a rustle of boughs, a wolf sprang out of his cover and raced across the sward. The shimmer of the light in many a glade showed stags browsing, or wild ponies herding. But of habitation there was no sign, nor of man.

The little troop must have left the priest twenty minutes before de Guyon resumed his conversation with the rogue who had led him on such a fool's errand. The stillness of the forest and the spell of the night, wedded to his fatigue, had quelled the words upon his lips, and compelled him to remember upon what emprise he was embarked. He began to wonder by what manner of cunning and tale he should lead "the little Huguenot," Gabrielle de Vernet, from her nest in the forest to the intrigues and dangers of the palace. He asked himself if all the stories of her wit and beauty were the mere fancies of her friends, or pretty realities which he must know and cope with. He remembered that he had met her once at Paris in the house of her cousin Claude Vernet, the painter; but that was two years ago, immediately after the death of her husband, Comte de Vernet, the uncompromising foe to the Catholic faith, and before she withdrew to the château to put into practice a creed built on the confession of the Savoyard Vicar, added to a certain orthodoxy which satisfied her fat kinsman, the Abbé Gondy, who regarded her possessions With the eyes of a father and a devout son of the Holy Church. The lieutenant could recall nothing of her features; he knew nothing of her life but such facts as were told in the gossip of the ramparts and the salon. Nor did he hold it possible that she would offer any objection to accompany him to the palace—there to set her views and opinions before his Majesty. Her views and opinions! What a play it was! And how the king would listen to the creed of such a piquant disciple! What a task the conversion would be. He began even to wonder who would marry her when the royal ears were weary of her platitudes, and the spell of debauchery had chilled her zeal.

With such thoughts for company, he rode on in silence. They had now come out upon park-like land, where great oaks cast black rings of shade; and a lake, harbouring many wild-fowl, shone like a mirror of silver. There was a great wood, black and seemingly impenetrable, upon the far shore of the lake, and when de Guyon observed this, he drew rein and surveyed his environment.

"Well, rogue," said he to Pepin, "where have you brought us now?"

"By the blood of John, that's what I begin to ask myself."

De Guyon looked at him for a moment with withering contempt in his glance.

"Unspeakable fool," said he, "I have the mind to box your ears as the priest did."

"Aye, that would be something; but look you, my master, a boxed ear will never make a full belly; and I have heard it said that patience is the father of plenty. There's fine ground for a bivouac here, if your Excellency commands. Lord, that I should bring you to bed of a fast!"

He sat scratching his head dolefully while the weary horses began to nibble at the grass and the men to mutter among themselves. Scarce, however, had de Guyon decided that, full or fasting, he could go no further, when the silence was broken of a sudden by the barking of dogs; a very babel of sound arising up, as it were, from the heart of the obstructing wood. Then lights appeared between the trees, and the voices of men were heard.

"Oh, glory be to God for the path that I have followed!" said Pepin, recovering from his momentary bewilderment. "Yonder, my master, is the Château aux Loups."

"It lies in the thicket, then?"

"Aye, as close surrounded with trees as a fine woman with petticoats. You could no more come up to it without guide than fly to heaven with half a paternoster. Blessed be the holy patron that hath brought me!"

But de Guyon no longer paid heed to him.

"Wind a blast on the horn," said he.

The sleeping forest echoed the music of the note, and the little troop rode on.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III GABRIELLE DE VERNET.

Pepin had spoken the truth about the château. It lay amongst the trees like a kernel in a nut. Many of the gigantic oaks which girdled it about thrust their long branches against the ramparts that looked down upon its narrow fosse. A man might have ridden in the forest for a year, and have known nothing of the turreted, castle-like building whereto Gabrielle de Vernet had, after the death of the Count, withdrawn to keep herself unspotted from the world. Paul de Guyon, halting in parley with a lackey at the wood's edge, could espy neither path nor gateway; and suffered his horse to be led through the mazy labyrinth of tree and bush, until he stood at last before the drawbridge and clattered into the ill-paved courtyard.

"My lady is at her devotions," said the man, "but I doubt not she will see your Excellency at once. Meanwhile, I will look to the comfort of your men."

"Ah," said Pepin, smacking his lips, "an honest soup with lettuce and leeks, a nice piece of bouillé, a frangipani and some green peas à la bourgeoise."

The man looked at him with amazement.

"It is the eve of the feast of St. Philip and St. James," said he simply, "monsieur will not wish to break the fast."

"To break the fast!" gasped Pepin, "aye, my friend, I have the mind to break it and that right soon. But I was ever a man of simple tastes—a well-boiled capon now!"

The servant shrugged his shoulders and turned to de Guyon.

"If only we had known of your Excellency's coming," said he. "It was otherwise before my master died. But now ah, we are put to shame in our own house!"

"Suffer no shame on my account, good friend," said de Guyon, "I am a soldier and look for a soldier's fare. Your mistress is at her devotions, did you say?"

"In the chapel yonder, monsieur "

"Then I came fortunately. Pepin, look to the men and behave yourself. I am going to say my prayers."

"Ho, ho," said Pepin to himself, "mon maître goes to pray. Surely the stars will fall!"

The chapel was upon the left side of the courtyard, a quaint Norman nook with fine rounded arches and pilaster-like buttresses, which had warred with the centuries and won victories. A stream of light was poured through its open but richly carved doorway, and the narrow windows were so many pictures of saints and angels hung up upon the begrimed walls. De Guyon, standing in the porch, observed many little shrines with candles burning before them, and he could hear the voice of the priest soft in a rippling monotone of prayer. When at last he ventured to enter, and to kneel at the bottom of the nave, the flicker of tapers and the long shadows they cast in the ashes and upon the bare stone pavement, blinded his eyes to any observation of the few worshippers who knelt before the high altar. But the magnificent ornaments of the chapel made themselves plain; and he doubted no longer those rumours of Gabrielle de Vernet's wealth which had come to the Court and had made "the little Huguenot" a subject for the gossip of the curious and of the king. None but a very rich woman, he said, could have heaped those altars with such jewelled crosses and such inlaid candlesticks. The very crucifix nailed to the wall above the pulpit must have been worth the salary of an almoner. Soft carpets, unsurpassable carvings of wood, pictures of the Christ and of saints, shrines whereon diamonds and rubies and precious stones caught the tapers' light, and adding to it their own fires, scattered dancing rays upon the gloom, were evidences of an ardent love of church—and of a well-filled purse. Whatever might have been the creed of the girlish mistress of the Château aux Loups, and there were many who avowed that in her heart she despised the Catholic religion, and was even less than a good Protestant, she yet conformed to the outward observance of the old forms. This chapel was an unanswerable witness to her generosity. It remained for the lieutenant to learn if it were also a witness to her sincerity.

To de Guyon, steeped in the unending niaiseries of the Court, with the glare of masquerade and banquet still in his eyes, the chill and gloom of this chapel were sobering. As he knelt at the foot of a great pillar and peered into the darkness of the chancel for the tapers before the tabernacle were unlighted—the reality of his task and the absurdity of it forced themselves upon his mind. It was the king's hope to lure "the little Huguenot" from her forest fastness, and to make sport of her creed; and—as de Guyon did not doubt—of her honour at the palace. A debauched appetite was made strong again in this thought of so dainty a dish. If only the mistress of the château could be tempted by intrigue to set foot in the palace, the battle was won. St. Anthony himself could not have shut his ears to the apocalypse of license and debauchery of which the king was the arch-priest. What mere intrigue could not accomplish, the wit of madame would ensure. This, at least, was the intention of those who had sent the young lieutenant of the guard to the work. There was scarce a finer man in the palace. His courage and good-nature were notorious. And he could play a part like Grandval himself. Only in the silence of the chapel did the hazard of the venture occur to him. How would he fare if "the little Huguenot" read his purpose? He had but six men with him. There must have been a hundred who would rally to the tocsin of the château. The fanatical warnings of the priest in the forest were prophetical of the common spirit. He might be cast into the fosse without, and no men of his company live to tell the tale of his coming. The common tongue said that Gabrielle was a woman of fine spirit. But that he must learn for himself.

Until this time, he had been unable from his place of observation to see anything of the company in the chapel. But now, when the priest had ended the mournful chanting, little acolytes in scarlet cassocks and white cottas kindled the tapers upon the high altar and also those in a great chandelier beneath the rood-screen. The new light fell upon a reredos of marble and gold, almost hidden by vases of white flowers. It fell, too, upon the face of an old priest gorgeously robed in a jewelled cope. While taper-bearers and thurifers prostrated themselves before the Host in the monstrance, and a hidden choir began to sing very sweetly the Latin hymn, "O Salutaris Hostia," de Guyon had eyes for none of these, but only for the little group of worshippers who knelt by the chancel gates. Here were some twelve men and women, all seemingly absorbed in their devotions, all dressed very soberly, and for the most part in plain black. There was not a man amongst them that hid his hair in a wig; not a woman of the company that seemed to know of the coiffure à boucles badines, au berceau d'amour or au mirliton. Simplicity was the note of it all, and de Guyon, when he had shaken off his surprise, admitted that this simplicity was in pretty harmony with the sombre note of the chapel. He might have been watching so many monks and nuns who had clothed themselves in lay dress—but timidly.

In the centre of the little company, there knelt a girl whose face was hidden from him, but whose figure and pose were infinitely graceful. He was led to believe by the position she occupied that she must be the countess, and that the men at her side were the poets and philosophers who had come to the château to air their graces and to fill their stomachs. For the time being she was occupied entirely with her devotions, and when she raised the smallest of white hands, it was to bury her face in them while she prostrated herself before the upraised Host, Anon, however, the music died away suddenly; the last cloud of incense floated to the vaulted roof; the acolytes extinguished the candles before the altar, and the girl rose and passed down the chapel. De Guyon said to himself that the gossips were right. If a Madonna had come out of one of the pictures above the shrines, and had stood before him, lending flesh and blood to the painter's vision, he could scarce have been more surprised. Such a delicacy of form and feature he had hardly seen in all the six years he had been at Versailles; had never known eyes in which so much tenderness and emotion seemed to lie. He declared that her mouth was like a rosebud upon which the dew has just fallen. She held herself with the grace of a woman grown grey in practising the courtesies; yet her limbs had the roundness and suppleness of maturing youth. The black robe, falling from her shoulders prettily yet without panier, and set off only with lace at her neck and wrists, was her best adornment. She wore no jewels; not so much as a band of gold upon her arm. Her brown hair was simply coiled upon her head. De Guyon said to himself that Legros, with all his art, could not have added to the effect of it. And with this thought he left the chapel to await her in the courtyard.

Her greeting was simple, neither effusive nor lacking welcome.

"I have heard of you, Monsieur de Guyon, from my Cousin Claude," said she, when he had presented his letters to her; "you must be tired, indeed. Let us think of supper before we read even these letters"—and so turning to the group of men standing behind her, she added simply—

"Gentlemen, let me present you Monsieur de Guyon, a lieutenant of his Majesty's Guards. He has ridden far to serve us, and we must thank him by hastening to supper."

She passed on with a graceful inclination of her head, while servants conducted de Guyon to a room in the right wing of the château. Ten minutes later he was supping in the hall.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER IV THE KINGFISHER AND THE CROWS.

The lieutenant of the guard was a man to please. His scarlet coat slashed with gold, his fine lace and buckles, his gorgeous sword-belt, showed all the points of his lusty figure in their perfection. There was dormant intellect marked in his eyes, good temper in the well-balanced features of his face, which always wore a self-satisfied smile. Two studies alone occupied him at Versailles or Paris—the study of showy wit and of showy women. Seated by Gabrielle de Vernet's side in the hall of the château he was like a kingfisher among crows. A sense of superiority gave him confidence. He said to himself that it would be easy to shine in such a company.

The long table, lighted by heavy silver candelabra, was arranged in the form of a horse-shoe. The crows, broken down wits and poets, displaying a ripe eagerness for the repast, were at the lower end of the hall. A heavy-browed priest, with hanging cheeks and a purple cassock, sat upon the left hand of the hostess. There was armour in abundance upon the walls of the panelled apartment; and a choir in a gallery at the far end sang a Latin grace very prettily. And that done with, the lackeys busied themselves and the crows began to peck.