The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  THE APOSTLE OF PEACE

  "She may be a witch, and the daughter of Jezebel," murmured D'Aubignelow to Rosny, "but this time, of a verity, she has snatched thechestnuts out of the fire for us!"

  "I would she were safe back again in Auvergne," said Rosny; "our Henryis never himself when he gets among that crew."

  The two Huguenot chiefs spoke truly. There was no doubt that the Queenof Navarre had outwitted her mother, and strengthened the warlikeresolutions of the Bearnais, so that he refused all art or part in thegathering of the States-General at Blois.

  Catherine, the Queen-Mother, had to depart ill-satisfied enough. Thelittle town of Argenton dropped back again into its year-long quiet.Gallantly Henry escorted his wife part of the way to her castle ofUsson, and so far, at least, husband and wife were reconciled. As forthe Princess Catherine, she was sent off with a guard of gentlemen toNerac, while once more in Blois the house of Madame Granier, close tothe hostelry of Anthony Arpajon, was occupied by its trio of guests. Atleast, Claire and the Professor abode continually there, and took theirpleasant walks in the quickly-shortening days of autumn. The willowsbegan to drop their narrow flame-shaped leaves into the current of theLoire after every gust. And in the windless dawns, as soon as the sunstruck the long alignment of ashes, these dainty trees proceeded todenude themselves of their greenery with sharp little reports like toypistols.

  As for Jean-aux-Choux, he had great business on hand. Every day heinvented some new folly at the Chateau. He laughed with the pages, whotold their masters, who in turn told their ladies. And so all the worldsoon knew that the Fool of the Three Henries was to be present at themeeting of Parliament. Well, so much the better. In such times theyneeded some diversion.

  Jean came little to Anthony the Calvinist's hostel. That was toodangerous. Yet often by night he would slip through the littleriver-door which opened into the courtyard of Madame Granier's house, totalk a while with his dead master's daughter and her Professor--also toobserve, with his small twinkling grey eyes, the lie of the land.

  Indeed, it was a time in which to be mightily circumspect. The town ofBlois was filled to overflowing with all the hot-heads of the League.The demagogues of Paris, the full Council of the Sixteen, led byChapelle Marteau and Launay, cheered on the princes of Lorraine toexecute their firm intention of coercing Henry III., and compelling himto deliver the crown into the hands of the Duke of Guise and hisbrothers--the princes of the House of Lorraine.

  By permission of the Bearnais, to whom, as his cousin and chieftain, theAbbe John had now made solemn offer of his allegiance, that youth waspermitted to remain as an additional pair of eyes in the Chateauitself--and also, he told himself, as a good sword, not too far away,in case any harm should threaten Claire in her river-side lodging.

  The green robe of the Professor of Eloquence, with its fur sleeves andgolden collar now wholly repaired by the clever fingers of Claire, whosecare for her father's wardrobe had given her skill in needlework, passedto and fro in all the stairways and corridors of the Chateau. He waswelcome to the King, who knew the classic orators, and had devoted muchtime to the cultivation of a ready and fluent mode of address. And itwas, indeed, no other than our excellent Professor Anatole who preparedand set in order, with sounding words and cunning allusions, the famousopening speech of the King to his nobles on the 18th of October, 1588.

  Altogether, the privileges of our friends at this time were many, andthe Leaguers did not seriously incommode them. D'Epernon, who wasthoroughly loyal to Henry III., and for the time being, at least, meantto keep the agreements made on his master's behalf with the Bearnais,stood ready in Angouleme, with all the Royalists he could muster.

  As far as Blois itself was concerned, however, the Guisards and thechampions of the League would have swamped all, save for the threat of astrong Huguenot force hovering in the neighbourhood. This restless armywas occasionally reported from Tours, again from Loches, from Limoges,so that the Leaguers, though of incomparable insolence, dared not, atthat time, push the King of France directly into the arms of theBearnais.

  But we may as well hear the thing reported by eye-witnesses.

  Cautiously, as was her custom, Madame Granier had peered through thethick _grille_ of the water-door before admitting the Professor and theAbbe John. Silent as a spectre Anthony Arpajon had entered from theother side by his own private passage, locking the iron port behind him.They sat together in Dame Granier's wide kitchen, without any lightingof lamps or candles. But the wood burned red on the hearth, above whichDame Granier kept deftly shifting the _pot-au-feu_, so that none of itscontents might be burned.

  Each time she did so she thrust in underneath smaller branches, gleanedfrom last year's willow-pollarding. The light flared up sharply withlittle spitting, crackling noises, so that all in the kitchen saw eachother clearly.

  Now they discussed matters from the standpoint of the Chateau. That wasthe Professor, with a little assistance from John d'Albret, a poorprince of the blood some-few-times-removed. They talked it over from thepoint of view of the town. It was Anthony Arpajon who led, the widowGranier adding a word or two. They heard, in a low whisper, the mostprivate states of mind of the King, seen only by those who had the rightto penetrate into his cabinet. It was a red-haired, keen-eyed fanaticwho spoke of this, with the accent and Biblical phraseology ofGeneva--namely, one Johannus Stirling, Doctor in Theology, commonlydenominated Jean-aux-Choux, the Fool of the Three Henries.

  As for Claire Agnew, she gazed steadily into the fire, elbow on knee,her rounded chin set in the palm of her hand, and her dark curls pushingthemselves in dusky confusion about her cheek. The Abbe John was theonly person at all uneasy. Yet it was not the distant dubious soundsfrom the town which troubled him, nor yet the cries of the boatmen ofSt. Victor dropping down under the bridge of Vienne, the premier arch ofwhich sprang immediately out by the gable of Dame Granier's house.

  No, the Abbe John was uneasy because he wished to move his littlethree-legged stool nearer to the black oaken settle at the corner ofwhich sat Claire Agnew.

  The Leaguers might seize his person to make him a king--in default ofbetter. Well, he would keep out of their way. His cousin, the Bearnais,would certainly give him a company in the best-ordered army in theworld. His other yet more distant cousin, Philip of Spain, would, if hecaught him, present him with a neat arrangement in yellow, with flamesand devils painted in red all over it. Then, all for the glory of God,he would burn him alive because of consorting with the heretic.

  Many careers were thus opening to the young man. But just at present,and, indeed, ever since he had looked at her across the dead man,stretched so starkly out among the themes and lectures on ProfessorAnatole's Sorbonne table, John d'Albret had felt that his true call inlife was to minister to the happiness of Mistress Claire Agnew. Andincidentally, in so doing, to his own.

  Of this purpose, of course, Mistress Claire was profoundly unconscious.That was why she looked so steadily at the fire, and appeared to berevolving great problems of state. But it is certain, all the same, thatno one else of all that company was deceived, not even sturdy AnthonyArpajon, who so far forgot himself, being a widower and a Calvinist, asto wink behind backs at Dame Granier when she was bringing up a newarmful of dried orchard prunings to help boil the pot.

  "I for one would not sleep comfortably in the Duke of Guise's bed atnight," said the Professor sententiously. "I spoke to-day with thatbrigand D'O, whose name is as short as his sword is long, also withGuast, the man who goes about with his hand on the hilt of his dagger,familiarly, as if it were a whistle to call his scent-dogs to heel. No,I thank God I am but a poor professor of the Sorbonne--and even so,displaced. Not for ten thousand shields would I sleep in the Duke'sbed."

  "Perhaps that is the reason," suggested Jean-aux-Choux darkly, "why heprefers so often that of his friend Monsieur de Noirmoutier. He isafraid of seeing the curtains put suddenly back and, through the mistsof his last sleep, the dark faces of the as
sassins and the gleaming oftheir daggers! Yet why should either you or he be afraid--a gurgle, asigh, and all would be over!"

  A shudder moved the shoulders of Claire as she drew nearer to the blaze,and, by consequence, further from the restless encroachments of the AbbeJohn's three-legged stool.

  "He is a brave man, though he has done such ill," she said, sighing. "Ilove brave men!"

  The Abbe John instantly resolved to demand the captaincy of a forlornhope from the Bearnais, and so charge single-handed upon the ramparts ofParis.

  But the Professor of the Sorbonne would listen to no praise whatsoeverof the Guises. "The Duke," he averred, "spins his courage out of theweakness of others. He takes the King of France for a coward. 'He doesnot dare slay me,' he boasts; 'I am safe in his castle as in mine ownhouse. If Henry of Valois slew me, he would have three-quarters of hisrealm about his ears in a week! And what is better, he knows it!'"

  "Yes," said the Abbe John, speaking for the first time, "and I heard hissister, Madame de Montpensier, say only to-day, that she and her brotherHenry were going to give the King the third of the three crowns on hisscutcheon. He has been King of Poland, he is King of France, and thethird crown represents the heavenly crown which will soon be his.Alternatively, she exhibits to all comers, even in the antechamber ofthe King, the golden scissors with which she is going to cut a tonsurefor 'Brother Henry,' as she calls him--the Monk Henry of that order ofthe Penitents which he organised in one of his fits of piety!"

  Jean-aux-Choux shook his shaggy head like a huge water-spaniel.

  "They flatter themselves, these dogs of Guise," he said; "they fillthemselves with costly wine, that the flower of life pass them not by.They hasten to crown themselves with rosebuds, ere they be withered.'Let us leave the husks of our pleasures in every place,' they say. 'Forthis is our lot. We alone are the great of the earth. The earthbelongeth to Lorraine, and the goodliness thereof. Before us, kingstwice-born, cradled in purple, are as naught. A good man is an insult tous. Let us slay and make an end, even as we did on the Eve ofBartholomew, that we may pass in and enjoy the land'--such is theirinsolence--'from Dan to Beer-sheba, and from Zidon even to the sunnyslopes of Engedi--lest we be too late, lest we also pass away, as in thesummer sky the trace of a cloud. For the Sea of Death is beneath--theSea of Death is beneath!' Aha, aha! The mouth of the Lord hath spoken byGuise, even as by the mouth of Balaam his ass, in the strait-walled pathbetwixt the two vineyards, as thou comest unto Arnon!"

  At the voice of the Fool turned Prophet, all sound ceased in the widekitchen-place of good Dame Granier. Anthony Arpajon stood rapt, notdaring to move hand or foot. For he believed that the word of the Lordhad entered into Jean-aux-Choux, and that he was predicting the fall ofthe Guises.

  "Verily, the bloody and deceitful man shall not live out half his days!"he muttered.

  "It were truer, perhaps, to say," the Professor interjected, "that theywho take the sword shall perish by the sword, and that those who arousein King Henry of Valois the blackness of his gall, shall perish by thesword held under the cloak--suddenly, secretly, with none to help, andwith the sins of a lifetime as lead upon their souls!"

  "Amen!" cried Jean-aux-Choux; "stamp on the serpent's eggs! Cut theGuisards off, root and branch----"

  "Is not that only your own Saint Bartholomew turned upside down?"demanded the Professor of Eloquence sharply. "You have read the Book ofthe Wisdom, I hear. I would remind you of the better way which you willfind written therein. For, if prudence worketh, what is there thatworketh better than she? You, who are a learned theologue, answer methat!"

  "Prudence," cried the Genevan fiercely. "Have not I made myself a foolfor the Kingdom of Heaven's sake? This is no time for prudence, but forfewer soft answers and more sharp swords! Ha, wait till the Bearnaiscomes to his own. Then there will be a day when the butchers of Parisshall cry to their shambles to fall on them and hide them. We of theFaith will track them with bloodhounds, and trap them like rats!"

  "Then," retorted the Professor, "if that be so, I solemnly declare thatyou of the Huguenots are no whit better than the Leaguers and Guisards,who are even now seeking my life. I stand in the middle way. May God(such is your cry) give you victory or give you death. Well, I am surethat victory would be the worst present He could give you, if such werethe use you would make of it."

  But Jean-aux-Choux, pupil of Calvin, was not to be put down.

  "Have ye never read in the Psalms," he cried, "how David said that theLord would arise in judgment to help all the meek of the earth, and howthat surely even the wrath of man God would turn to His praise?"

  "I have also read in the same place," retorted the Professor ofEloquence, "that 'the remainder of the wrath He will restrain.' YouHuguenots are not quite of the meek of the earth. When one cheek issmitten, doth the Bearnais turn the other? I, for one, should not liketo try. Nay, not even with good Master Johannus here, Doctor inTheology, late of Geneva, commonly known as Jean-aux-Choux!"

  "If, indeed, you know a better way, my good Doctor of the Sorbonne,"said Jean, "pray show it forthwith! I am open to conviction, even as wasmy master, John Calvin!"

  "That I will," quoth the Professor; "if you will have none of prudence,then seek wisdom. Ask of God. He will not refuse you. Is it not writtenin the Book that 'Wisdom, the worker of all things, hath taught me? Forin her is the spirit of understanding--holy, only begotten, manifold,subtle, clear, undefined, loving the good and doing it, courteous,stable, sure, without care, having all power, yet circumspect in allthings--and so, passing into all intellectual, pure, and subtlespirits.' So, indeed, it is written."

  "Ah, that is part of your lecture on the blessings of peace," said theAbbe John, disgusted that he could arrive no nearer to the goal of hisdesirings. A three-legged stool makes a courser both slow and noisy.

  "Eh," said the Professor, "it may be--it may be. I have often read thesewords with delight and, I grant you, I may have used them in anotherconnexion."

  "I have the notes of the lecture in my pocket!" said the Abbe John.

  "Hum," commented Professor Anatole, looking sidelong at his pupil, "itis well to find you so attentive once in a way. At the Sorbonne thething did not happen too often."

  There was a short, uncomfortable period of silence, for the tone of theProfessor of Eloquence had been somewhat rasping. He was annoyed, asperhaps John d'Albret had expected.

  But he resumed again after awhile, his anger having as quickly fallen.

  "I do not deny it. I am by nature a man urbane. I hold with him who saidthat the worst peace that ever was made is better than the best war thatever was waged. I am of Paul's faction, when he counselled 'Follow peacewith all men'!"

  There came a sudden loud knocking at the river-gate. A hush and an awefell upon all. Instinctively hands drew to sword-hilts. John and Anthonyleaned forward, listening intently, hardly daring to breathe. But theman who flung the door wide open was the Apostle of Peace himself--evenProfessor Anatole Long, Doctor of the Sorbonne.

  Having done so, he found himself with his sword-stick bare in one hand,and a loaded pistol in the other.