The Scourge of God: A Romance of Religious Persecution
So far as one so feeble as the princess now was could do so, she bent
her head acquiescingly; doubtless she knew also that it was best that
this woman should never be an acknowledged queen. She had not been a
brilliant figure of the court of France for fifty years without being
aware of all that was said, all that was whispered of Françoise
d'Aubigné ere she found religion--as well as favour in the eyes of the
king! Also, all that was whispered after that favour was found. There
were a thousand tongues for ever wagging, as well as innumerable
pens--the pen of De Sevignés to hint, the pens of Rabutins and
Tallement des Réaux to speak plainly. Also her first lover was
remembered and spoken of with many a courtier's tongue thrust in his,
or her, cheek.
But now--now! she posed as God's vicegerent in France. Religion, even
God himself, as some said bitterly, had been taken under her
patronage; the king trembled for his soul as she worked on the fears
of his mind, and Jansenists, Calvinists, Huguenots had been driven
forth by hundreds of thousands to other lands, or, remaining in
France, had been dragooned, sent to the galleys, the wheel, and the
flames. The "_femme fameuse et funeste_" was the greatest living saint
in Europe.
And as a saint, a patroness of the Holy Roman Church, she came now to
visit the Princesse de Rochebazon once more ere she died.
"Aurore," she said, a moment later, "I have come to you again, hoping
to find you not yet gone before me; because--because--oh, Aurore!
to--to plead once more for the sacred cause of our Church; to beseech
you to consider what you are about to do. Think! Think! You have
worked so much good for that Church--yet you may do more."
"More!" the dying woman said, her clear, bright eyes fixed full blaze
upon the other. "Madame--well, Françoise, since you insist--what more
can I do? There is no de Rochebazon succeeding to title or estate, the
power to will the latter, and--and all the movables, the _argent
comptant_, is mine. And it is done. Beyond a few gifts to those who
have served me, beyond what I have saved from that which is not justly
mine, the Church will have all--all! Can it demand further?"
"'Tis that, 'tis that, Aurore! What you have saved from that which is
most justly yours? 'Tis that! You told me," and now her voice, never
loud, sank almost to a whisper, as though she feared that even in this
vast room there might still be some who could overhear her, "that to
this young man, this Martin Ashurst--this _Anglais_--you have left
those savings. A noble heritage, five hundred thousand pistoles.
Oh, Aurore! Aurore! think, think! it is French money, and he
is--English----"
"He is my own flesh and blood," the other interjected. "My brother's
child! And he is of our Church!"
"That alone redeems it. Yet think of all our Church, here in this
France of ours, needs. Money to extirpate the heretics--some can even
be _bought_ with money, they say; in the _Midi_ there are those who
will adopt our religion for a handful of Louis d'ors----"
"They must have changed since their grandfather's days!--since La
Rochelle!"
"They _have_ changed, though--Vengeance confound and crush them!--some
are still obstinate. But, Aurore, listen. This young man, this nephew,
needs not the money. He is provided for, will be provided for in his
own land. He will do well--go far under the heretic, Anne. Oh, Aurore,
he is your flesh and blood, I know. 'Tis but nature that you should
benefit him--yet not so much, not so much. God is before man--before
all earthly relations."
"He is my brother's child," the Princesse de Rochebazon repeated. "And
I loved that brother. Also this one has been my care----"
"I know, I know! Supported, educated by you, given money hourly to
squander in waste. Yet I speak not against that; he is of your race.
But now you will give him all this--so great a sum! And France needs
money. Aurore," she cried, "do you know that our--that Louis'--coffers
are empty? The wars, the buildings, the pomps and vanities, the awful
prodigalities of the court have left those coffers bare. And money is
needed so, needed so--especially for the work of the Church--needed so
much!"
And she almost wrung her hands as thus she pleaded. Yet again the
dying aristocrat murmured: "My own flesh and blood. Also of our
faith."
Exhausted by her own efforts, the De Maintenon--the Curse of France!
as many had termed her--seemed now to desist, to be beaten back by the
words of the princess. Then suddenly seemed also roused to fresh
excitement as the other spoke again--excitement mixed this time with
anger, as testified by the glances her eyes shot forth. For the dying
woman had continued: "Though I provide for him I must tell him the
truth--tell all. I can not die with a lie on my lips--in my heart."
"Aurore!" she exclaimed--had she not been a king's wife, had this not
been a sick-room, it might almost have seemed that she screamed at the
other--"Aurore, your brain is gone. You are mad. Tell him all, and
lead to further evil to our Church. Aurore, for God's sake say this is
a fantasy of your mind. Why," she exclaimed, her passion mounting with
her thoughts, "why should you, a stranger to France, a woman raised by
marriage to your high position, bring scandal on the name of a noble
family--reveal secrets that have slumbered for years?"
"I can not die," the other repeated, "with the truth hidden."
"The truth," Madame de Maintenon muttered through her discoloured
teeth, "the truth! What has the truth to do with--what account is it
when set against our faith! Aurore, in the name of that faith, recall
your words, your resolve."
But the dying woman was unshaken. Even the other, whose influence
terrified all France, could not affright her--perhaps because the
princess knew that henceforth she had to answer to a greater than she.
"I must confess it to him--I must--I must!" she murmured faintly. "I
must. I can not die with such a secret in my heart."
CHAPTER II.
THE TRAVELLER FROM ENGLAND.
A great _Berline à quatre chevaux_ halted at the North Gate outside
Paris, and the young man seated within the carriage let down the
window and prepared to once more answer all the questions that would
be put to him. Yet he also thanked Heaven, in a somewhat wearied
manner, that this must be the last of it. After that he would be in
Paris, with nothing before him but to drive as fast as might be to the
Rue Champfleury, known long ago as La Rue Honteuse.
Then the formula began once more, was repeated and gone through with,
precisely in the same manner as it had been gone through with at
Boulogne, where he had landed, at Amiens, Abbeville, and half a dozen
other towns and villages.
"Monsieur's name?" asked the _guet_, respectfully enough, while as
each answer was made he glanced at the passport handed to him and
countersigned by the Ambassador to England from "Louis, Roi de France
et de Navarre, etc."
"Martin Ashurst."
"Country?"
"England."
"Position?"
"Gentleman. Also----"
But here he found that no more explanation whatever was required from
him. Precisely as he had found it all along the road, whenever the
inquiring eyes of warders or _guets_ or gatekeepers (in some cases
soldiers) had lit upon one of the many statements appended to his
passport--the statement that Monsieur Ashurst was nephew to "Madame la
Princesse de Rochebazon."
"Passez, monsieur," said the man, as all the other men had said on
seeing this, and saluting as all the other men had saluted; after
which, with a direction to the coachman to proceed, he retired into
his room in the gatehouse.
"The last, thank God," the occupant of the Berline muttered, "the
last. It has been wearisome, but, well, it is over. Now for my aunt."
In spite of his weariness incurred by an unhalting journey from
London, in which sleep could only be obtained by snatches here and
there, in spite of the dust along the highroads both of England and
France having discoloured his scarlet coat and tarnished his gold
lacings and rendered dirty his Valenciennes cravat, as well as having
turned the whiteness of his wig to a dirty yellowish brown, Martin
Ashurst presented an attractive appearance. His features were handsome
and manly, clear-cut and aristocratic--Madame la Princesse de
Rochebazon, once Aurora Ashurst, had herself possessed the same
features when young--his figure was slight, yet strong and well knit,
his whole appearance satisfactory. Also he bore about him those
indefinable traits which mark the gentleman, which, perhaps, it may be
said without offence to others, mark and distinguish the English
gentleman particularly. A certain calm, a self-contained air, a lack
of perception of the existence of those who were unknown to him, and
thereby without his ken, distinguished Martin Ashurst as it has always
distinguished so many of the well-bred of our land.
Yet his life had not been all passed in England, the first fifteen
years of it being, indeed, spent in France under the patronage of the
aunt to whom the _Berline à quatre chevaux_ was now bearing him as
fast as four heavy Flanders roadsters could drag it.
Gabriel Ashurst, his father, and Gabriel's sister Aurora, had been two
among the hundreds of Royalists who, in the year 1647, were taken by
their parents to France as soon as it was possible to escape out of
England and from the clutches of the Parliamentarians. Then, in
France, in Paris, had begun for them that long career of exile against
which so many of the followers of the Stuarts had repined so much at
first, and which, in due course, so many had come to like and, in some
cases, to appreciate. Also there had come to this exiled family a
splendid piece of good fortune, the like of which did not fall often
in the way of English exiles. Aurora Ashurst, a girl of twenty, had
won the heart of Henri de Beauvilliers, then Baron de Beauvilliers,
but with, before him in the near future, the titles and wealth and
great positions of Comte de Montrachet, Marquis du Gast d'Ançilly, and
Prince de Rochebazon, for the head of the house who held them all was
near his end; they were almost within the grasp of Henri, as he stood
at the altar with his English bride. Three months after their marriage
they were his.
Time passed. Gabriel married, as well as his sister, his wife being a
countrywoman of his own, also in exile with her family. Cromwell died,
the Stuarts were restored. Then Gabriel and his wife returned to
England, but the lad, Martin, was left in charge of the Princesse de
Rochebazon, who had become by now a childless widow--was, indeed,
almost adopted by her. It was true she could not make him heir to the
great titles--those must die out!--but at least she could provide for
him, and she set about doing it. The whole control of the de
Rochebazon wealth was hers to do what she pleased with; she
might, if she had desired, have left their châteaux, their
woods and forests in half a dozen provinces, their hotel in the Rue
Champfleury--everything, to him. Only, because she was a just woman
and a religious, she would not do that, recognising that the wealth
accumulated by generations of French nobles ought not in common
honesty to go to one who had no tie of blood with them and who
belonged to a land which was almost always at war with France.
Therefore, urged partly by the promptings of her own heart and deep
Catholic feelings, partly by the promptings of a priest, and partly by
those of the De Maintenon, as well as by a whispered hint in the soft
courtly tones of _le Roi Soleil_, now cowering under the awful terrors
that too often assail the self-righteous, she left all the wealth of
the heirless De Rochebazons to the Church, reserving only for Martin