The Scourge of God: A Romance of Religious Persecution
not troublesome, and up to now I have not had to exercise the strong
hand. Also," and now he bowed with the easy grace which had never
forsaken him though he had been absent from Versailles for seventeen
years, "if you will permit me, if you will accept of any courtesy at
my hands--at the hands of Baville, the hated Intendant--I shall be
pleased to be of service to you. As a connection of the house of de
Rochebazon I may do that, while as a private gentleman, who does not
obtrude his religious belief upon me, I shall be happy to assist you
in your quest. Though I warn you I do not think you will succeed."
"You think the man I seek for never came here, or, coming, is dead?"
For a moment the other paused ere answering, his handsome face
indicating that he was lost in thought, his clear eyes gazing
searchingly into the eyes of the other. "I do not know. I can not say.
It is most probable that if he ever came he is dead."
"Leaving no children?"
"How can I say? At least--if--if he is dead he must have died and left
no trace or sign. Died without divulging who he was."
Then Baville turned to the door as though to go; yet ere he did so he
spoke again, repeating his words:
"I should counsel you to make Montpellier your resting place. If aught
is to be learned I may help you to learn it there."
"I thank you. Doubtless it would be best. Yet there is one request I
must make to you; it is to--to deal gently with Buscarlet. On my word
of honour as a gentleman, he has had no hand in these recent troubles.
He besought those mountaineers who descended on Montvert to spare the
abbé."
"There is nothing against Monsieur Buscarlet at present which calls
for severity. Yet if he does not change his faith I know not what may
be the end. If these Cévenoles do not desist, or are not stamped out,
the retribution will be terrible."
"On all?"
"I fear on all. The Church never forgives. The Church will cry for
vengeance against the Huguenots, and I, the ruler, must hear that
cry."
"And answer it?"
"And answer it; for their resistance is rebellion, and rebellion must
be crushed. Warn him, therefore, to be on his guard. To preach, above
all, obedience to the king. Otherwise there is no hope. The prisons
are already full of his brethren. Bid him beware, I say. They term
Louis the 'Scourge of God,' and they speak truly. He will scourge the
land of all who oppose him. And if not he--then his wife."
CHAPTER XIII.
URBAINE.
From the Mediterranean the warm, luscious breezes of the south sweep
up to where Montpellier stands ere they pass the city and waft to the
summits of the Cévennes the perfume of the flowers and the odours of
the rich fruits which grow upon the shores of the beauteous sea. And
from Montpellier itself, from the old _Place de Peyrou_, may be
obtained a view that is unsurpassed both in its beauty and in its
power of recalling to the memory the loathsome cruelties which,
perpetrated in the days of Louis the Great King, have smirched forever
that beauty. Far away, too, where rise the tips of the mountains of
Ventoux on the confines of fair Provence, the Alps begin to
show--those Alps over which the weary feet of escaping Protestants had
been dragged as their owners sought the sanctuary of a more free land.
Below lies a beautiful valley watered on one side by the Loire and on
another by the Rhône, watered once also by the blood and the tears of
the heartbroken dwellers therein. A valley teeming once again with the
fruits of the earth, and with now all signs erased of the devastation
which he, whose statue stands in that _Place de Peyrou_, caused to be
spread around; erased from human sight, but not from human
recollection.
Upon the other side lies Cette, of scant importance in these times as
seacoast towns and harbours are reckoned, and dead and done with--lies
there basking and smiling beneath the warm sun that shines alike in
winter as in summer. Cette, the place which, in the minds of the
forefathers of those who now dwell there, bore the blackest, most
hated name of all the villages bordering the blue sea. For here the
galleys harboured, here fathers and husbands, brothers and sons, were
flung to horrors and miseries and the life of an earthly hell--a hell
whose pangs knew no assuagement till death, most welcome, brought
release.
From where Baville sat in his open window Cette could be seen; the
harbour in which half a dozen of those galleys lay waiting for their
victims. On a table before him were papers for the sending of other
victims to the prisons of the surrounding towns; also the sentences of
death allotted to many rebels, death in hideous forms. Some to be hung
upon the bridges of their own town, some to be broken on the wheel,
some to be burned in market places, some to have their forefingers
struck off (a form of punishment peculiar to the neighbourhood and to
those who had been captured in the present uprisings), and afterward
to be hanged.
Also on tables at either side of him were orders to the colonels of
local regiments to place themselves under direction of Julien; orders
to others to provide forage and stabling for so many horses and
accommodation for so many men; orders, too, for provisions and forage
to be sent in to Montpellier and Nîmes for the victualling of the
forces quartered there. And to all and every one of these he had
already affixed his signature, "Baville"--a signature which here
carried as much authority as if, instead, it had been "Louis."
Yet it was not about these papers that Nicholas de Lamoignon de
Baville, Comte de Launai-Courson, Seigneur de Bris, Vaugrigneuse,
Chavagne, Lamothe-Chaudemier, Beuxes and other places, as well as
Conseiller d'Etat, Intendant de Justice, polices et finances--to give
him his full names and titles--was thinking on this bright morning,
nor on them that his eyes rested. Instead, upon a far smaller thing--a
thing on which one would scarcely have thought he would have wasted a
moment's attention--a little plain cornelian seal which he was turning
over and over in his hands and regarding carefully through a small
magnifying glass.
"Strange," he muttered to himself, "strange if, after all, after years
of meditation and inquiry, I should thus have lit upon the clew!
Strange, strange!"
He struck, as thus he mused, upon a little bronze gong that stood by
his side and ready to his hand, and a moment later the door was opened
and a man of about his own age came into the room in answer to the
summons; a man whose plain garb, made of the local Nîmes serge, and
wig _à trois marteaux_, proclaimed almost with certainty that he was a
clerk or secretary.
"Casalis," the Intendant said, he having put the seal beneath some
papers ere the other entered, "there is in the library a book
entitled, _Devises et blasons de la Noblesse Française_, is there
not?"
"There is, your Excellency. Prepared a year ago by Monsieur le
Comte----"
"Precisely. Fetch it, if you please."
The man retired, and, after being absent some few moments, came back,
bearing in his hand a large, handsome volume bound in pale brown
morocco, the back and sides covered with fine gold tooling and with
Baville's crest stamped also on each side--a splendid book, if its
contents corresponded with its exterior.
"Shall I find any particular entry for your Excellency?" the man
asked, pausing with the volume in his hand.
"No, leave it. I may desire to look into it presently."
Left alone, however, Baville looked into it at once, pausing at the
names under "B" to regard with some complacency his own crest and arms
beautifully reproduced in colours on vellum.
Then he turned over a vast number of leaves in a mass, arriving at the
letter "T," and re-turning back to "R," finding thereby the page which
was headed "De Rochebazon." And emblazoned in the middle of the vellum
in red, gold, and blue was the coat of arms of that great family;
above it was the crest of the house, on a rock proper a hawk with
wings elevated--the motto "Gare."
"So," said Baville to himself, "he was of noble family, was a de
Rochebazon. Had I looked at this book when the Comte de Paysac sent it
to me, compared it with the seal, I should have known such was the
case a year ago. Yet what use even if I had done so? What use? One can
not recall--undo the past."
And Baville--even Baville, the "tiger of Languedoc," as he had been
termed--sighed.
He took next the seal from the papers where he had pushed it and
compared it with the Comte de Paysac's book, though even as he did so
he knew there was no need for such comparison; the crest upon it was
as familiar to him as his own. Then he muttered:
"It is pity Monsieur le Comte did not make his work even more
complete. Some information would be useful. As to whom he married, to
wit, as to whom this young man may be, who is related to the late
princess. Also as to the family of the princess--I should know that. I
would the count were still alive."
As thus he mused a shadow fell across the path that wound before his
open window. From behind the orange tubs which formed a grove in front
of that window there stepped out a girl who, seeing him there, smiled
and said, "_Bon jour, mon père_." Then came on to the window and,
leaning against the open frame, asked if she might come in, might
bring him some flowers she had plucked to decorate his cabinet.
"Always, Urbaine," he said, "always," and he put out his hand as
though to draw her to him. "Come in, come in."
Had this been a darkened room, a sombre cabinet into which no ray of
sunlight ever stole, instead of being, in truth, a bright, gay
apartment, the presence of the girl whom he addressed as Urbaine would
have made it cheerful, have seemed to bring the needed sunlight to it;
for, as she stood there, her long white dress giving fresh radiance to
the room, her fair hair irradiated by the beams of light that glinted
in through the dark-green leaves of the orange trees, she seemed to
cast even more lustre around, making even the grave, serious face of
the Intendant look less severe. In her hands she carried a mass of
roses and ferns on which the dew sparkled, also some large white
lilies.
"Come, Urbaine," he said to her, "come, sit on your accustomed seat.
When you are at Versailles you will have no father's knee to sit
upon," and, caressingly, he drew her toward him, while she, sitting
there, arranged the flowers into bunches.
As he mentioned Versailles she sighed and turned her eyes on him, then
said:
"Why send me away, father? I do not wish to go. I desire to stay here
by your side. By my mother's, too. Let me remain," and she bent
forward and kissed his forehead.
"Nay," he answered, "nay, Montpellier is no place for you now. You are
best away from it. At present all is not well. Urbaine, these rebels
are stronger than we thought. Julien has been here a month, and what
has he done? Nothing, except sustain defeat. Now we must have more
troops from Paris. Montrevel, they say, will come; yet ere he does so
much may happen. Nîmes, even Montpellier, may fall into their hands.
Urbaine, I will not have you here to--to--fall into their hands also."
"Surely they will not hurt women. They say they attack none but
soldiers--and--and priests; that, rough and fierce as they are, no
woman has ever suffered at their hands. We of our side," and she
sighed, "can scarcely say as much."
"Who has told you this, child? Perhaps your new friend, Monsieur
Martin. Nay, I see by your blush it is so. Urbaine, you must not
believe all he says. Remember, he is a Huguenot too."
"He has never spoken to me on such themes, or, speaking, has said
nothing you could disapprove of. He says this uprising is wicked,
unlawful; is not the way to gain their ends. Also he has told me that