The Huguenot Part 1

The Huguenot.

by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James.

DEDICATION.

TO

CHARLES RUDOLPHE

LORD CLINTON,

My Lord,

Although I, of course, look upon the book, which I now venture to dedicate to one whom I so much esteem and respect, with those parental prejudices which make us often overlook all defects, and magnify any good qualities in our offspring, yet, believe me, I feel that it is very far inferior to that which I could wish to present to you. Do not, then, measure my regard by the value of the work, but accept it only as a very slight testimony of great esteem; and, at the same time, allow me, even in my Dedication, to say a few words concerning the book itself.

I will not trouble you or the public with any reasoning upon the general conduct of the story--why I suddenly changed the scene here, or flew off to another character there,--why I gave but a glimpse of such a personage, or dwelt long and minutely upon another. I believe and trust that those who read the work attentively will discover strong reasons for all such proceedings, and I am quite sure that much thought and care was bestowed on each step of the kind before it was taken. Your own good taste will decide whether I was right or wrong, and blame or approve, I know, whatever I might plead. The public will do so also; and, as a general rule, I think it best to conceal, as far as possible, in all cases, the machinery of a composition of this kind, suffering the wheels to produce their effect without being publicly exhibited.

I have heard many authors blamed, however, and, doubtless, have been so myself, for frequently changing the scene or character before the reader's eyes. There are people who read a romance only for the story, and these are always displeased with anything that interrupts their straightforward progress. But nature does not tell _her_ stories in such a way as these readers desire; and, in the course of human life, there are always little incidents occurring, which seem of no earthly importance at the time, but which, in years long after, affect persons and produce events where no one could imagine that such a connexion is likely to be brought about.

I have always in this respect, as in all others, endeavoured to the best of my abilities to copy nature; and those readers who pa.s.s over little incidents, because they seem at the time irrelevant, or run on to follow the history of one character whenever a less interesting personage is brought upon the scene, will derive little either of profit or pleasure from any well constructed work of fiction. I have, as far as possible, avoided in all my works bringing prominently forward any character or any scene which has not a direct influence upon the progress and end of the tales; but I have equally avoided pointing out to the superficial reader, by any flourish of trumpets, that the personage he thinks of no importance is "to turn out a great man in the end," or that the scene which seems unconnected and irrelevant will be found not without results.

Besides these considerations, however, I trust every romance-writer in the present day proposes to himself greater objects than the mere telling of a good story. He who, in the course of a well-conceived and interesting tale, excites our good pa.s.sions to high and n.o.ble aspirations; depicts our bad pa.s.sions so as to teach us to abhor and govern them; arrays our sympathies on the side of virtue, benevolence, and right; expands our hearts, and makes the circle of our feelings and affections more comprehensive; stores our imaginations with images bright, and sweet, and beautiful; makes us more intimately and philosophically acquainted with the characters of our fellow-men; and, in short, causes the reader to rise wiser and with a higher appreciation of all that is good and great,--attains the grand object at which every man should aim, and deserves the thanks and admiration of mankind. Even he who makes the attempt, though without such success, does something, and never can write altogether in vain.

That you, to whom I inscribe this work, can appreciate such purposes, and will encourage the attempt, even where, as in these pages, it goes little beyond endeavour, is no slight pleasure to me: nor is it an unmeaning or insincere compliment when I say, that though I yield my own opinions to no man, yet I have often thought of you and yours while I have been writing these volumes. I know not whether you remember saying one day, after we had visited together the school inst.i.tuted by our n.o.ble acquaintance Guicciardini, "that whether it succeeded or failed, the endeavour to do good ought to immortalize him." Perhaps you have forgotten the words, but I have not.

Allow me, ere I end this long epistle, to add something in regard to the truth of the representations made in the work, and the foundation on which the story rests. If you will look into the curious "Memoires Historiques sur la Bastille," published in 1789 (vol. i., page 203), you will find some of the bare facts, as they are stated in the Great Register of the Bastille, on which the plot of the tale that follows entirely hinges.

Of course I cannot forestall my story by alluding more particularly to those facts; and I have only further to say on that subject, that for many reasons I have altered the names inserted in the Great Register.

I have also taken the same liberty with regard to the scenes of many events which really occurred, placing in Poitou what sometimes took place in Dauphiny, sometimes in Provence. Nor have I felt myself bound in all instances to respect the exact dates, having judged it expedient to bring many events within a short compa.s.s which were spread over a greater s.p.a.ce of time. I have endeavoured, however, to represent most accurately, without prejudice or favour, the conduct of the French Catholics to French Protestants, and of Protestants to Catholics, during the persecutions of the seventeenth century. My love and esteem for many excellent Catholics--priests as well as laity--would prevent me, I believe, from viewing the question of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and the consequences thereof, with a prejudiced eye; and when I read the following pa.s.sages in the writings, not of a Protestant, but of a sincere Catholic, I am only inclined to doubt whether I have not softened the picture of persecution.

"Il restait peu a faire pour exciter le zele du roi contre une religion solemnellement frappee des plus eclatans anathemes par l'eglise universelle, et qui s'en etait elle-meme frappee la premiere en se separant de tout l'antiquite sur des points de foi fondamentaux.

"Le roi etait devenu devot, et devot dans la derniere ignorance. A la devotion se joignit la politique. On voulut lui plaire par les endroits qui le touchaient le plus sensiblement, la devotion et l'autorite. On lui peignit les Huguenots avec les plus noires couleurs; un etat dans un etat, parvenu a ce point de licence a force de desordres, de revoltes, de guerres civiles, d'alliances etrangeres, de resistance a force ouverte contre les rois ses predecesseurs, et jusqu'a lui-meme reduit a vivre en traite avec eux. Mais on se garda bien de lui apprendre la source de tant de maux, les origines de leurs divers degres et de leurs progres, pourquoi et par qui les Huguenots furent premierement armes, puis soutenus, et surtout de lui dire un seul mot des projets de si longue main pourpenses, des horreurs et des attentats de la ligue contre sa couronne, contre sa maison, contre son pere, son aeul, et tous les siens.

"On lui voila avec autant de soin ce que l'evangile, et d'apres cette divine loi les apotres, et tous les peres et leur suite, enseignent la maniere de precher Jesus Christ, de convertir les infideles et les heretiques, et de se conduire en ce qui regarde la religion. On toucha un devot de la douceur de faire, aux depens d'autrui, une penitence facile qu'on lui persuada sure pour l'autre monde. * * * * *

"Les grands ministres n'etaient plus alors. Le Tellier au lit de la mort, son funeste fils etait le seul qui restat, car Seignelay ne faisait guere que poindre. Louvois, avide de guerre, atterre sous le poids d'une treve de vingt ans, qui ne faisait presque que d'etre signee, espera qu'un si grand coup porte aux Huguenots reunirait tout le Protestantisme de l'Europe, et s'applaudit en attendant de ce que le roi ne pouvant frapper sur les Huguenots que par ses troupes, il en serait le princ.i.p.al executeur, et par la de plus en plus en credit.

L'esprit et le genie de Madame de Maintenon, tel qu'il vient d'etre represente avec exact.i.tude, n'etait rien moins que propre, ni capable d'aucune affaire au-dela de l'intrigue. Elle n'etait pas nee ni nourrie a voir sur celle-ci au-dela de ce qui lui en etait presente, moins encore pour ne pas saisir avec ardeur une occasion si naturelle de plaire, d'admirer, de s'affermir de plus en plus par la devotion.

Qui d'ailleurs eut su un mot de ce qui ne se deliberait qu'entre le confesseur, le ministre alors comme unique, et l'epouse nouvelle et cherie; et qui de plus eut ose contredire? C'est ainsi que sont menes a tout, par une voie ou par une autre, les rois qui, par grandeur, par defiance, par abandon a ceux qui les tiennent, par paresse ou par orgueil, ne se communiquent qu'a deux ou trois personnes, et bien souvent a moins, et qui mettent entre eux et tout le reste de leurs sujets une barriere insurmontable.

"La revocation de l'edit de Nantes, sans le moindre pretexte et sans aucun besoin, et les diverses proscriptions plutot que declarations qui la suivirent, furent les fruits de ce complot affreux qui depeupla un quart du royaume; qui ruina son commerce; qui l'affaiblit dans toutes ses parties; qui le mit si longtemps au pillage public et avoue des dragons; qui autorisa les tourmens et les supplices dans lesquels ils firent reellement mourir tant d'innocens de tout s.e.xe par milliers; qui ruina un peuple si nombreux; qui dechira un monde de familles; qui arma les parens contre les parens pour avoir leur bien et les laisser mourir de faim; qui fit pa.s.ser nos manufactures aux etrangers, fit fleurir et regorger leurs etats aux depens du notre, et leur fit batir de nouvelles villes; qui leur donna le spectacle d'un si prodigieux peuple proscrit, nu, fugitif, errant sans crime, cherchant asile loin de sa patrie; qui mit n.o.bles, riches, vieillards, gens souvent tres-estimes pour leur piete, leur savoir, leur vertu, des gens aises, faibles, delicats, a la ruine, et sous le nerf tres-effectif du comite, pour cause unique de religion; enfin qui, pour comble de toutes horreurs, remplit toutes les provinces du royaume de parjures et de sacrileges, ou tout retentissait de hurlemens de ces infortunees victimes de l'erreur, pendant que tant d'autres sacrifiaient leur conscience a leurs biens et a leur repos, et achetaient l'un et l'autre par des abjurations simulees, d'ou sans intervalle on les trainait a adorer ce qu'ils ne croyaient point, et a recevoir reellement le divin corps du saint des saints, tandis qu'ils demeuraient persuades qu'ils ne mangeaient que du pain qu'ils devaient encore abhorrer. Telle fut l'abomination generale enfantee par la flatterie et par la cruaute. De la torture a l'abjuration, et de celle-ci a la communion, il n'y avait pas souvent vingt-quatre heures de distance, et leurs bourreaux etaient leurs conducteurs et leurs temoins. Ceux qui, par la suite, eurent l'air d'etre changes avec plus de loisir, ne tarderent pas par leur fuite ou par leur conduite a dementir leur pretendu retour."--_St. Simon_, vol. xiii. p. 113. ed.

1829.

I have now nothing further to say, my dear Lord Clinton, but to beg your pardon for having already said so much, and to express a hope that you and the public will deal leniently by that which is now offered to you, with the highest respect and esteem, by

Yours most faithfully,

G. P. R. James.

_Fair Oak Lodge, Petersfield_.

17_th Nov_. 1838.

THE HUGUENOT.

CHAPTER I.

THE HERO, HIS FRIEND, AND HIS DWELLING IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

There is a small town in one of the remote provinces of France, about ten miles from the sea sh.o.r.e, and two or three hundred from the capital, on the appearance of which it may be as well to dwell for a short time; noticing not alone its houses and its streets as they appeared in the seventeenth century, but its inhabitants, their feelings, and their customs, at that period.

Were we not to make this formal sort of presentation, the reader would feel as if set down suddenly amidst a crowd of strangers with no one to introduce him, with no one to unpadlock the barrier which the cautious laws of society set up between man and man, to guard against the wild-beast propensities of the race of intellectual tigers to which we belong. Now, however, if we manage skilfully, the reader may become as familiar with the people of another day, and scenes of another land, as if they had been the playfellows of his childhood, and the haunts of his youth; and may go on calmly with those to whom he is thus introduced through the dark and painful events which are recorded in the pages that follow.

That part of France in which our scene is laid, presents features which differ very much from the dull and uninteresting aspect of the land from Calais to Paris, and from Paris to the mountains of Switzerland--the route generally pursued by our travelling countrymen, whether they go forth to make what is usually called the grand tour, or content themselves with idling away a long s.p.a.ce of mispent time amongst the Helvetian mountains. In the district that I speak of, the face of the country, though it cannot perhaps be called mountainous, is richly varied, running up into occasional high and pointed hills, presenting frequent ma.s.ses of rock and wood, diversified by a mile or two, here and there, of soft pasture and meadow; with innumerable streams--some calm and peaceful, some fierce and torrent-like, some sparkling and playful, giving an air of life and glad activity to the land through which they flow. These manifold streams shed also a hue of indescribable verdure, a fresh leafyness of aspect, that is most grateful to the eye; and though there is not there, as in our own land, the frequent hedge-row, with its sweet village a.s.sociations, yet there is no want of high umbrageous trees scattered here and there, besides the thick woods that, in many places, occupy several leagues in extent, and the lesser copses that nest themselves in many a dell.

The district that we speak of is bright in its skies and warm in its sunshine, though it is not precisely in the region of the richest vine; and there are scarcely five days, during six months of the year, in which, on every stony bank or on the short soft turf above the large lizards may not be seen basking in their coats of green and gold. There are not, indeed, the cloudless skies of Italy, which, notwithstanding their splendid colouring, are insipid from their very cloudlessness: no, but wreathed in grand ma.s.ses by the free air, sometimes drifting from the British channel, sometimes sweeping from the wide western ocean, the clouds and the sunshine sport together in the heaven, while the shadow and the light chase each other over the earth below, and ever and anon comes down a pa.s.sing shower, refreshing the lands it lights upon, and leaving them brighter than before.

On the top of one of the tall rocky hills we have mentioned, in very remote feudal times,--for we find it mentioned in all the wars undertaken by the Edwards and the Henries in their vain endeavours to grasp a crown that did not belong to them,--a town had been built and fortified, circ.u.mscribed by large stone walls flanked by round towers, and crowned by the square keep of a castle, only one wall of which has been left, for now near a century and a half. This town was of small size, occupying nothing but the summit of the hill, and was strictly confined within the walls; and, indeed, below, on three sides, were such steep ascents--in some places showing precipitous s.p.a.ces of rude rock, and in others covered with short, green, slippery turf--that it was scarcely possible for the inhabitants to have built beyond the walls, except on one side, even if they had been so inclined.

In such times of danger, however, it had been the object of those who possessed the town to keep that fourth side, by which the ascent was more easy, clear from all houses and buildings of any kind, so that the quarrels from the cross-bow, the arrows from the bow, or the b.a.l.l.s from the cannon--as different ages brought different inventions--might sweep down unimpeded upon any approaching enemy, and that the eye might also have a free range to discover the approach of a foe. Thus that gentler slope was not even broken by a road till the end of the sixteenth century, the way up to the town from the valley below being constructed with great skill and care upon one of the steepest sides of the hill, by means of wide short platforms, each of which was defended by some particular fortification of its own, while the whole line of the valley and the lower part of the road were commanded by the cannon of the castle of St. Anne, a rude old fortress on an inferior hill, of little or no use to any persons but those who possessed the higher and more important works above. Through the valley and winding round the foot of the hill of St. Anne was a wide, clear, beautiful stream, navigable up to that spot, and falling into the sea at the distance of ten or twelve miles in a direct line, but which contrived to extend its course, by the tortuous path that it pursued amongst the hills, to a length of nearly twenty leagues.

Such as we have described was the situation, in feudal times, of the small town that we shall call Morseiul; but ere the commencement of our tale those feudal times had pa.s.sed away. Even during the wars of the League the town had remained in tranquillity and repose. It was remote from the general scene of strife; and although it had sent out many who aided, and not insignificantly, in upholding the throne of Henry IV., there was but one occasion on which the tide of war flowed near its walls, and then speedily retreated, and left it una.s.sailed.

Under these circ.u.mstances fortifications were soon neglected--precautions were no longer taken--the cannon for half a century remained upon the walls unused--rust and honeycomb began to gnaw into the heart of the iron--sheds were erected in the embrasures--houses succeeded--gardens were laid out in the round towers--the castle of St. Anne fell utterly into ruins--and some of the patriotic and compa.s.sionate inhabitants thought it a hard tax upon the sinews of the horses, who in those days carried from place to place the merchandise of the country, to be forced to climb the zizgag path of one of the more precipitous sides of the hill. Thus in the early part of the reign of Louis XIII. a pet.i.tion was addressed by the inhabitants to their count, who still retained all his feudal rights and privileges, beseeching him to construct or permit the construction of a gate upon the southern side of the town, and a road down the easier descent.

The count, who was a good-humoured man, a n.o.bleman of the school of Henry IV., and as fond of the people of the good town as they were of him, was quite willing to gratify them in any reasonable desire; but he was the more moved to do what they wished in the present instance, inasmuch as some ten or fifteen years before he had himself broken through the old rules and regulations established in the commune, and not only built himself a chateau beyond the walls of that very side, but laid out a s.p.a.ce of two or three acres of ground in such a manner as to give him shade when he wanted it, and sunshine when the shade was not agreeable.

Of the chateau we shall speak hereafter: but it is only here necessary to say, that in building this dwelling beyond the walls, the Count de Morseiul of that day had forgotten altogether the possibility of carrying a road down that side of the hill. He had constructed a way for himself into the town by enlarging an old postern in the walls, which he caused to open into his garden, and by this postern, whenever he sought to issue forth into the country beyond, he took his way into the town, traversed the square, and followed the old zigzag road down the steep side of the hill. The peasantry, indeed, had not failed to think of that which their lord had overlooked, and when they had a dozen or two of pigeons, or a pair of fowls, or a fat calf to present to the seigneur, they almost invariably brought it by the slope up the hill. A path had thus been worn from the valley below in the precise direction which was best fitted for the road, and whenever the good townsmen presented their pet.i.tion to the count, it instantly struck him how very convenient such a road would be to himself as well as to them.

Now the count was neither a cunning nor an ungenerous man; and the moment he saw that the advantage to be derived would be to himself, he determined to open the gate, and make the road at his own expense without subjecting the commune or the peasantry to corvee or fine. He told the inhabitants so at once, and they, as they well might be, were grateful to him in consequence. He made the road, and a handsome one it was; and he threw down a part of the wall, and erected a splendid gate in its place. He gave no name, indeed, to either; but the people immediately and universally bestowed a name on both, and called them the Count's Gate, and the Count's Road, so that the act was perpetuated by the grateful memory of those whom it benefited.

As, following the example of the earth on which we live, every thing upon its surface moves forward, or perhaps we may say appears to move forward, while very likely it is going but in a circle, the opening of the gate and the making of the road was speedily followed by another step, which was the building of houses by the road-side; so that, at the period when our tale commences, the whole aspect, appearance, and construction of the town was altered. A long street, with gardens at the back of the houses, extended all the way down the gentle slope of the hill; the gate had been widened, the summit had been cleared of a great number of small houses, and a view was opened straight up into a fine gay-looking market square at the top, with the ruined wall of the old keep, raising its high head covered with ivy on the western side, and to the north the little church, with its tall thin-slated spire rising high, not only above the buildings of the town itself, but the whole of the country round, and forming a remarkable object, which was seen for many leagues at sea.

We are in this account supposing the reader to be looking up the street, which was turned towards the south, and was consequently full of sunshine towards the middle of the day. It would, indeed, have been intolerably hot in the summer, had it not been that the blessed irregularity of the houses contrived to give some shade at every hour of the four and twenty. But from the bottom of that street almost up to the top was to be seen, upon the left hand, rising above the buildings of the street itself, the weatherc.o.c.ks, and round turrets, and pointed roofs and loop-holes, and windows innumerable, which marked the chateau built by the count who had constructed the road; while here and there, too, were also seen the tops of the tall limes and elms with which he had shaded his gardens, and which had now grown up into tall splendid trees, flourishing in the years which had brought him to decay and death.