by G. A. Henty
“We met in the courtyard of the prison, and were stupefied at seeing our horses saddled and bridled there, and Monsieur De Merouville and his wife already mounted. Two unarmed troopers were also there, and this gentleman, who said sourly:
“‘Mount, sirs, I am going to lead you to your friends.’
“We looked at each other, to see if we were dreaming, but you may imagine we were not long in leaping into our saddles.
“This gentleman has not been communicative. In fact, by his manner, I should say he is deeply disgusted at the singular mission with which he was charged; and on the ride here Francois, Monsieur de Merouville, and myself have exhausted ourselves in conjectures as to how this miracle has come about.”
“Wait two or three minutes longer,” Philip said, with a smile. “When you get to yonder trees, you will receive an explanation.”
Francois and Monsieur D’Arblay gazed in surprise at the figures of nine men, all in scanty raiments, wrapped up in cloaks, and evidently guarded by the men-at-arms, who set up a joyous shout as they rode in. Monsieur de Merouville uttered an exclamation of astonishment, as he recognized the dreaded personages collected together in such a plight.
“Monsieur de Merouville,” Philip said, “I believe you know these gentlemen by sight.
“Monsieur D’Arblay and Francois, you are not so fortunate as to be acquainted with them; and I have pleasure in introducing to you the President of the Parliament of Toulouse, the Judge of the High Court, and other councillors, all gentlemen of consideration. It has been my misfortune to have had to treat these gentlemen with scant courtesy, but the circumstances left me no choice.
“Monsieur de Merouville, here is a document, signed by these nine gentlemen, giving a solemn undertaking that you and Madame shall be, in future, permitted to reside in your chateau without the slightest let or hindrance; and that you shall suffer no molestation, whatever, either on account of this affair, or on the question of religion. I have a duplicate of this document; and have, on my part, given an undertaking that, if its terms are broken I will, at whatever inconvenience to myself, return to this neighbourhood, hang these ten gentlemen if I can catch them, and at any rate burn their chateaux to the ground. Therefore I think, as you have their undertaking and mine, you can without fear return home; but this, of course, I leave to yourself to decide.
“Gentlemen, you are now free to return to your homes; and I trust this lesson—that we, on our part, can strike, if necessary—will have some effect in moderating your zeal for persecution.”
Without a word, the president and his companions walked away in a body. The troopers began to jeer and laugh, but Philip held up his hand for silence.
“There need be no extra scorn,” he said. “These gentlemen have been sufficiently humiliated.”
“And you really fetched all these good gentlemen from their beds,” D’Arblay said, bursting into a fit of laughter. “Why, it was worth being taken prisoner, were it only for the sake of seeing them. They looked like a number of old owls, suddenly disturbed by daylight—some of them round eyed with astonishment, some of them hissing menacingly. By my faith, Philip, it will go hard with you, if you ever fall into the hands of those worthies.
“But a truce to jokes. We owe you our lives, Philip; of that there is not a shadow of doubt. Though I have no more fear than another of death in battle, I own that I have a dread of being tortured and burned. It was a bold stroke, thus to carry off the men who have been the leaders of the persecution against us.”
“There was nothing in the feat, if it can be called a feat,” Philip said. “Of course, directly we heard that you had been seized and carried into Toulouse, I cast about for the best means to save you. To attempt it by force would have been simple madness; and any other plan would have required time, powerful friends, and a knowledge of the city, and even then we should probably have failed to get you out of prison. This being so, it was evident that the best plan was to seize some of the citizens of importance, who might serve as hostages. There was no difficulty in finding out, from a small cultivator, who were the principal men living outside the walls; and their capture was as easy a business. Scarcely a blow was struck, and no lives lost, in capturing the whole of them.”
“But some of the men are missing,” D’Arblay said.
“Yes; five of your men, I am sorry to say. On getting back to the wood after dark I sent them, as you ordered, to fetch you from Monsieur de Merouville’s; but of course you had been captured before that, and they fell into an ambush that was laid for them, and were all killed.”
“That is a bad business, Philip.
“Well, Monsieur de Merouville, will you go with us, or will you trust in this safeguard?”
“In the first place, you have not given me a moment’s opportunity of thanking this gentleman; not only for having saved the lives of my wife and myself, but for the forethought and consideration with which he has, in the midst of his anxiety for you and Monsieur de Laville, shown for us who were entire strangers to him.
“Be assured, Monsieur Fletcher, that we are deeply grateful. I hope that some time in the future, should peace ever again be restored to France, we may be able to meet you again, and express more warmly the obligations we feel towards you.”
Madame de Merouville added a few words of gratitude, and then D’Arblay broke in with:
“De Merouville, you must settle at once whether to go with us, or stay on the faith of this safeguard. We have no such protection and, if we linger here, we shall be having half a dozen troops of horse after us. You may be sure they will be sent off, as soon as the president and his friends reach the city; and if we were caught again, we should be in an even worse plight than before. Do you talk it over with Madame and, while you are doing so, Francois and I will drink a flask of wine, and eat anything we can find here; for they forgot to give us breakfast before they sent us off, and it is likely we shall not have another opportunity, for some hours.”
“What do you think, Monsieur Fletcher?” Monsieur de Merouville said, after speaking for a few minutes with his wife; “will they respect this pledge? If not we must go, but we are both past the age when we can take up life anew. My property would, of course, be confiscated, and we should be penniless among strangers.”
“I think they will respect the pledge,” Philip replied. “I assured them, so solemnly, that any breach of their promises would be followed by prompt vengeance upon themselves and their homes, that I feel sure they will not run the risk. Two or three among them might possibly do so, but the others would restrain them. I believe that you can safely return; and that, for a long time, at any rate, you will be unmolested.
“Still, if I might advise, I should say sell your property, as soon as you can find a purchaser at any reasonable price; and then remove, either to La Rochelle or cross the sea to England. You may be sure that there will be a deep and bitter hatred against you, by those whose humiliation you have witnessed.”
“Thank you. I will follow your advice, Monsieur Fletcher; and I hope that I may, ere long, have the pleasure of seeing you, and of worthily expressing our deep sense of the debt of gratitude we owe you.”
Five minutes later the troop mounted and rode away, while Monsieur de Merouville, with his wife behind him, started for home.
“I hope, Francois,” D’Arblay said, as they galloped off from the wood, “that the next time I ride on an expedition your kinsman may again be with me, for he has wit and resources that render him a valuable companion, indeed.”
“I had great hopes, even when I was in prison, and things looked almost as bad as they could be,” Francois said, “that Philip would do something to help us. I had much faith in his long headedness; and so has the countess, my mother. She said to me, when we started:
“‘You are older than Philip, Francois; but you will act wisely if, in cases of difficulty, you defer your opinions to his. His training has given him self reliance and judgment, and he has been more in the habit of thinkin
g for himself than you have,’ and certainly he has fully justified her opinion.
“Where do you propose to ride next, D’Arblay?”
“For La Rochelle. I shall not feel safe until I am within the walls. Presidents of Parliament, judges of High Court, and dignified functionaries are not to be dragged from their beds with impunity. Happily it will take them an hour and a half to walk back to the town; or longer, perhaps, for they will doubtless go first to their own homes. They will never show themselves, in such sorry plight, in the streets of the city where they are accustomed to lord it; so we may count on at least two hours before they can take any steps. After that, they will move heaven and earth to capture us. They will send out troops of horse after us, and messengers to every city in the province, calling upon the governors to take every means to seize us.
“We have collected a good sum of money, and carried out the greater portion of our mission. We shall only risk its loss, as well as the loss of our own lives, by going forward. The horses are fresh, and we will put as many miles between us and Toulouse as they can carry us, before nightfall.”
The return journey was accomplished without misadventure. They made no more halts than were required to rest their horses and, travelling principally at night, they reached La Rochelle without having encountered any body of the enemy.
While they had been absent, the army of Conde and the Admiral had marched into Lorraine and, eluding the forces that barred his march, effected a junction with the German men-at-arms who had been brought to their aid by the Duke Casimir, the second son of the Elector Palatine. However, the Germans refused to march a step farther, unless they received the pay that had been agreed upon before they started.
Conde’s treasury was empty, and he had no means, whatever, of satisfying their demand. In vain Duke Casimir, himself, tried to persuade his soldiers to defer their claims, and to trust their French co-religionists to satisfy their demands, later on. They were unanimous in their refusal to march a step, until they obtained their money.
The Admiral then addressed himself to his officers and soldiers. He pointed out to them that, at the present moment, everything depended upon their obtaining the assistance of the Germans—who were, indeed, only demanding their rights, according to the agreement that had been made with them—and he implored them to come to the assistance of the prince and himself at this crisis. So great was his influence among his soldiers that his appeal was promptly and generally acceded to, and officers and men alike stripped themselves of their chains, jewels, money, and valuables of all kinds, and so made up the sum required to satisfy the Germans.
As soon as this important affair had been settled, the united army turned its face again westward; with the intention of giving battle, anew, under the walls of Paris. It was, however, terribly deficient in artillery, powder, and stores of all kinds and, the military chest being empty and the soldiers without pay, it was necessary, on the march, to exact contributions from the small Catholic towns and villages through which the army marched and, in spite of the orders of the Admiral, a certain amount of pillage was carried on by the soldiers.
Having recruited the strength of his troops, by a short stay at Orleans, the Admiral moved towards Paris. Since the commencement of the war, negotiations had been going on fitfully. When the court thought that the Huguenots were formidable, they pushed on the negotiations in earnest. Whenever, upon the contrary, they believed that the royal forces would be able to crush those of the Admiral, the negotiations at once came to a standstill.
During the Admiral’s long march to the east, they would grant no terms whatever that could possibly be accepted; but as soon as the junction was effected with Duke Casimir and his Germans, and the Huguenot army again turned its face to Paris, the court became eager to conclude peace. When the Prince of Conde’s army arrived before Chartres the negotiators met, and the king professed a readiness to grant so many concessions, that it seemed as if the objects of the Huguenots could be attained without further fighting, and the Cardinal of Chatillon and some Huguenot nobles went forward to have a personal conference with the royal commissioners, at Lonjumeau.
After much discussion, the points most insisted upon by the Huguenots were conceded, and the articles of a treaty drawn up, copies of which were sent to Paris and Chartres. The Admiral and Conde both perceived that, in the absence of any guarantees for the observance of the conditions to which the other side bound themselves, the treaty would be of little avail; as it could be broken, as soon as the army now menacing Paris was scattered. The feeling among the great portion of the nobles and their followers was, however, strongly in favour of the conditions being accepted.
The nobles were becoming beggared by the continuance of the war, the expenses of which had, for the most part, to be paid from their private means. Their followers, indeed, received no pay; but they had to be fed, and their estates were lying untilled for want of hands. Their men were eager to return to their farms and families, and so strong and general was the desire for peace that the Admiral and Conde bowed to it.
They agreed to the terms and, pending their ratification, raised the siege of Chartres. Already their force was dwindling rapidly. Large numbers marched away to their homes, without even asking for leave; and their leaders soon ceased to be in a position to make any demands for guarantees, and the peace of Lonjumeau was therefore signed.
Its provisions gave very little more to the Huguenots than that of the preceding arrangement of the same kind, and the campaign left the parties in much the same position as they had occupied before the Huguenots took up arms.
Chapter 8
The Third Huguenot War
Before the treaty of Lonjumeau had been signed many weeks, the Huguenots were sensible of the folly they had committed, in throwing away all the advantages they had gained in the war, by laying down their arms upon the terms of a treaty made by a perfidious woman and a weak and unstable king, with advisers bent upon destroying the reformed religion. They had seen former edicts of toleration first modified and then revoked, and they had no reason even to hope that the new treaty, which had been wrung from the court by its fears, would be respected by it.
The Huguenots were not surprised to find, therefore, that as soon as they had sent back their German auxiliaries and returned to their homes—the ink, indeed, was scarcely dry on the paper upon which the treaty was written—its conditions were virtually annulled. From the pulpit of every Catholic church in France, the treaty was denounced in the most violent language; and it was openly declared that there could be no peace with the Huguenots. These, as they returned home, were murdered in great numbers and, in many of the cities, the mobs rose and massacred the defenceless Protestants.
Heavy as had been the persecutions before the outbreak of the war, they were exceeded by those that followed it. Some of the governors of the provinces openly refused to carry out the conditions of the treaty. Charles issued a proclamation that the edict was not intended to include any of the districts that were appanages of his mother, or of any of the royal or Bourbon princes. In the towns the soldiers were quartered upon the Huguenots, whom they robbed and ill treated at their pleasure; and during the six months that this nominal peace lasted, no less than ten thousand Huguenots were slaughtered in various parts of France.
“The Prince of Conde, the Admiral, his brothers, and our other leaders may be skilful generals and brave men,” the Countess de Laville said indignantly to Francois when, with the troop, reduced by war, fever, and hardship to one-third of its number, he had returned to the chateau, “but they cannot have had their senses about them, when they permitted themselves to be cozened into laying down their arms, without receiving a single guarantee that the terms of the treaty should be observed.
“Far better never to have taken up arms at all. The king has come to regard us as enemies. The Catholics hate us more than ever, for our successful resistance. Instead of being in a better position than we were before, we shall be in a worse. We
have given up all the towns we had captured, thrown away every advantage we had gained and, when we are again driven to take up arms, we shall be in a worse position than before; for they no longer despise us, and will in future be on their guard. There will be no repeating the surprise of last September.
“I am disappointed above all in the Admiral, D’Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, and Genlis. Conde I have never trusted as one to be relied upon, in an extremity. He is a royal prince, has been brought up in courts, and loves gaiety and ease; and although I say not that he is untrue to the Huguenot cause, yet he would gladly accommodate matters; and as we see, even in this treaty, the great bulk of the Huguenots all over the country have been utterly deserted, their liberty of worship denied, and their very lives are at the mercy of the bigots.
“What do you think, Philip? Have you had enough of fighting for a party who wilfully throw away all that they have won by their sacrifices? Are you thinking of returning home, or will you wait for a while, to see how matters go on?”
“I will, with your permission, wait,” Philip said. “I lament this peace, which seems to me to leave us in a worse position than before the war; but I agree with you that it cannot last, and that ere long the Huguenots will be driven again to take up arms. Francois and I have become as brothers and, until the cause is either lost or won, I would fain remain.”
“That is well, Philip. I will be glad to have you with us, my nephew. La Noue wrote to me, a month since, saying that both my son and you had borne yourselves very gallantly; that he was well pleased to have had you with him; and that he thought that, if these wars of religion continued—which they might well do for a long time, as in Germany and Holland, as well as in France, the reformed religion is battling for freedom—you would both rise to eminence as soldiers.